Sample records for opec

This thesis aims to contribute to a further understanding of the real dynamics of OPEC production behavior and its impacts on the world oil market. A literature review in this area shows that the existing studies on OPEC still have some major deficiencies in theoretical interpretation and empirical estimation technique. After a brief background review in chapter 1, chapter 2 tests Griffin's market-sharing cartel model on the post-Griffin time horizon with a simultaneous system of equations, and an innovative hypothesis of OPEC's behavior (Saudi Arabia in particular) is then proposed based on the estimation results. Chapter 3 first provides a conceptual analysis of OPEC behavior under the framework of non-cooperative collusion with imperfect information. An empirical model is then constructed and estimated. The results of the empirical studies in this thesis strongly support the hypothesis that OPEC has operated as a market-sharing cartel since the early 1980s. In addition, the results also provide some support of the theory of non-cooperative collusion under imperfect information. OPEC members collude under normal circumstances and behave competitively at times in response to imperfect market signals of cartel compliance and some internal attributes. Periodic joint competition conduct plays an important role in sustaining the collusion in the long run. Saudi Arabia acts as the leader of the cartel, accommodating intermediate unfavorable market development and punishing others with a tit-for-tat strategy in extreme circumstances.

A model of global oil production is applied to study cartelization by OPEC countries. Writing out the shadow price on quota allocations so as to draw correspondence to coefficients of cooperation (Cyert et al. 1973), we examine the incentives that different OPEC members to collude. We find that hete

OPEC`s role in the world oil industry is expected to expand in line with its growing market share over the next 20 years. The article, based on a paper to the conference on `Arab oil and diplomacy` held in Amman, Jordon, on 18 May 1998, discusses OPEC`s role and the effect of environmental policies that reduce the income of OPEC Member Countries, such as carbon taxes and the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change. 2 figs., 1 photo.

A model of global oil production is applied to study cartelization by OPEC countries. We define a measure for the degree of cooperation, analogous to the market conduct parameter of Cyert et al. (1973), Geroski et al. (1987), Lofaro (1999), and Symeonidis (2000). This parameter is used to assess the

This publication studies a game between a group of countries that have agreed to participate in an international climate agreement (the signatories) and OPEC. The task of the signatories is to design carbon taxes that maximize their total net income, given a goal on global carbon emissions. In response to the climate agreement, OPEC imposes an oil tax on its member states that maximizes OPEC`s profits. Within a numerical model, the subgame-perfect equilibrium of a game is found in which each player chooses when to fix his decision variables. It is shown that, in equilibrium, the group of signatories chooses to be the leader and OPEC chooses to be the follower. It is demonstrated, however, that for both agents the order of move is of minor (numerical) importance. Hence, the players have limited incentives for strategic behaviour. 15 refs., 2 figs., 5 tabs.

This paper investigates rationale explanations of OPEC's strategies. Accounting for market characteristics in particular the sluggishness of demand and supply allows to explain price jumps as rational OPEC strategies from a narrow economic perspective (up and down) as well as from political objectives (at least up) due to the political payoff from standing up against the 'West'. Although the temptation to accrue this political payoff was and remains high, the narrow economic profit motive coupled with an imperfect cooperation among OPEC members explains past price volatility and high prices much better than the usual reference to political events. A more specific prediction is that OPEC will switch back to setting prices since the current quantity strategy encourages oil importing countries to appropriate rents in particular in connection with the need to mitigate global warming. (orig.)

Hamilton identifies 1973 to 1996 as “the age of OPEC” and 1997 to the present as “a new industrial age.” During 1974-1996 growth in non-OPEC oil production Granger causes growth in OPEC oil production. OPEC oil production decreases significantly with positive shocks to non-OPEC oil production in the earlier period, but does not do so in the “new industrial age”. In the “new industrial age” OPEC oil production rises significantly with an increase in oil prices, unlike during “the age of OPEC” ...

Understanding the long-run dynamics of OPEC and non-OPEC crude oil prices is important in an era of increased financialization of petroleum markets. Utilizing an ECM within a threshold cointegration and CGARCH errors framework, we provide evidence on the cointegrating relationship and estimate how and to what extent the respective prices adjust to eliminate disequilibrium. Our findings suggest that the adjustment process of OPEC prices to the positive discrepancies is slow which implies that ...

The competing strategies between OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC producers make the oil supply market a complex system, and thus, it is very difficult to model and to make predictions. In this paper, we combine the macro-model based on game theory and micro-model to propose a new approach for forecasting oil supply. We take into account the microscopic behaviour in the clearing market and also use the game relationships to adjust oil supplies in our approach. For the supply model, we analyse and consider the different behaviour of non-OPEC and OPEC producers. According to our analysis, limiting the oil supply, and thus maintaining oil price, is the best strategy for OPEC in the low-price scenario, while the rising supply is the best strategy in the high-price scenario. No matter what the oil price is, the dominant strategy for non-OPEC producers is to increase their oil supply. In the high-price scenario, OPEC will try to deplete non-OPEC's share in the oil supply market, which is to OPEC's advantage.

This article briefly and historically reviews the polices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC) and analyzes the factors that facilitate or hinder OPEC's monopoly in the crude oil market. The industrial concentration ratio is chosen to measure OPEC's monopoly power based on the data from 1986 to 2004. It is concluded that OPEC possesses a long-standing cartel foundation and a rather strong monopoly in the world crude oil market. At the same time, there are unstable factors that influence and even weaken OPEC's monopoly.

For the third consecutive year, OPEC aid amounted to more than $5.5 billion, representing more than two percent of the gross national product. This is compared to 0.31 percent for members of OECD's Development Assistance Committee. (Author/BB)

This study revisits the OPEC cartel hypothesis using a case study. A test is conducted to see if Venezuela has its production Granger cause its OPEC quota or whether the OPEC quota for Venezuela Granger causes Venezuelan production. The results show both occur at different times. In the short run, OPEC's oil production quota for Venezuela Granger causes Venezuelan production. However, shortly after cuts, Venezuela cheats on agreements, suggesting a tit-for-tat oligopoly game, which is not anti-competitive. In the long run, we show that Venezuelan oil production Granger causes OPEC's quota for Venezuela, but not vice versa. Having Venezuelan oil production Granger cause OPEC quotas for Venezuela in the long run suggests OPEC does not coordinate outputs as much as it reacts to them. The evidence suggests Venezuela is not a part of an OPEC anti-competitive syndicate even though we show that Venezuelan oil production is low. An alternative explanation for why Venezuela and possibly other OPEC members have low oil production outputs is that institutions and risk aversion, not cartel participation, is the cause. A vector error correction model shows that there is no tendency for Venezuelan oil production to converge to OPEC's quota for Venezuela.

This study revisits the OPEC cartel hypothesis using a case study. A test is conducted to see if Venezuela has its production Granger cause its OPEC quota or whether the OPEC quota for Venezuela Granger causes Venezuelan production. The results show both occur at different times. In the short run, OPEC's oil production quota for Venezuela Granger causes Venezuelan production. However, shortly after cuts, Venezuela cheats on agreements, suggesting a tit-for-tat oligopoly game, which is not anti-competitive. In the long run, we show that Venezuelan oil production Granger causes OPEC's quota for Venezuela, but not vice versa. Having Venezuelan oil production Granger cause OPEC quotas for Venezuela in the long run suggests OPEC does not coordinate outputs as much as it reacts to them. The evidence suggests Venezuela is not a part of an OPEC anti-competitive syndicate even though we show that Venezuelan oil production is low. An alternative explanation for why Venezuela and possibly other OPEC members have low oil production outputs is that institutions and risk aversion, not cartel participation, is the cause. A vector error correction model shows that there is no tendency for Venezuelan oil production to converge to OPEC's quota for Venezuela. (author)

Energy security policy continues to be haunted - at least within the halls of government - by fears of OPEC`s potential ability to curb oil supplies to the United States or to unexpectedly raise prices to economy-damaging levels. OPEC continues to exert (mainly psychological) influence in excess of its market role. Becaue OPEC`s continued existence skews the energy policy debate in the United States and in other oil-consuming countries, and because it complicates otherwise constructive relations between the US and the Arab world, the Clinton administration should confront OPEC and America`s energy security concerns directly. In its forthcoming energy-policy plan, the administration could declare the abolition of OPEC to be a goal of US foreign and trade policy. As a countermeasure, US energy policymakers should abandon the inflammatory frame of reference of energy security. No practical purpose has been served domestically or internationally by adherence to a policy that in the end has simply raised the economic cost of a vital commodity.

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay is mainly concerned with investigating the risk-responsive behavior of OPEC members. Economic theory suggests that producers respond to the risk of volatile price by lowering production level. In the case of OPEC, the risk of the volatility in the price of crude oil does not seem to be a key determinant in the production decision-making process. Engineering constraints, data frequency, and political consideration may be the main causes of such a result. In the second essay, we tested the presence of the asymmetric adjustment in the cheating behavior as a result of crude oil price shocks. We utilize a set of cointegration and error correction methods that do not assume a linear adjustment to test whether cheaters within OPEC respond more to positive or negative crude oil price shocks. We conclude that cheaters respond more to negative shocks than positive shocks in oil price. The inelastic nature of demand for oil seems to play a crucial role in such asymmetric behavior. When there is a negative price shock, OPEC producers compensate for the loss in revenue by overproducing (i.e. cheat). Yet, if there is a positive shock in the price of crude oil, OPEC producers have less incentive to overproduce because of the inelastic demand for oil. The third essay is concerned with testing for the asymmetric adjustment in gasoline prices in the U.S. We consider a Momentum Threshold Autoregressive (MTAR) process to test for the asymmetric adjustment in all of the possible stages that a gallon of gasoline goes through in order to find the source of asymmetry. Then, we examine the dynamics of gasoline prices using asymmetric error correction models based on the MTAR specifications. We find the asymmetric adjustment present in all stages. The asymmetry in the retail stage seems to be the result of insufficient demand faced by retailers.

The high energy costs brought on by price increases of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has reversed the trend of economic growth through cheap energy. Many economists feel that U.S. acceptance of these prices has supported the cartel. As a result, the world economy will lower, inflation and unemployment will intensify, and rescheduling the developing countries's $170 billion external debt will disrupt international finance. The increase of crude oil prices from $2.75 to $12 a barrel have caused the consuming nations to lose $600 billion in output while paying OPEC an additional $225 billion in new oil revenues. The U.S. lost $60 billion in GNP and over 2 million jobs in 1976 alone, according to George Perry of the Brookings Institution; capital investment has dropped and some has been diverted to the weapons industry. An overall tightening of the U.S. economy, which some economists think was too restrictive, has been the major U.S. response. Although world capital seems to be adjusting to the higher prices, some economists are concerned that the international financial structure cannot withstand present balance-of-payment deficits of $40 to $60 billion. Only large loans by OPEC will enable the developing countries to continue economic growth. The political impact of OPEC prices is resulting in a movement toward socialism and fascism in the developed countries and conservatism in the oil-producing countries. The Soviet Union has supported the price increases and the movement to the left. (DCK)

Most studies concerning OPEC's behavior were based on traditional market microstructure. However, the assumptions about oil market structure are either very rigorous or rather fuzzy. This paper demonstrates the rationality and necessity of OPEC's price band policy by using the game theory. We conclude that OPEC has the incentive to limit its price within a specific range if the game period is sufficiently long. This incentive comes either from preference for long-term interest or from future expectations. In such a way, OPEC tries its best to maximize its profit with the quotaprice dual policy and plays a price stabilizing role in the future world oil market.

Full Text Available This article is focused on how OPEC policies have historically shaped global economic outlook; with a case example of United States of America (USA. The main aim of this study is to reflect the role of USA in strengthening of global economy using OPEC’s policies as the frontline mechanism and demonstrate an understanding of the key challenges confronted by world economies (especially emerging countries by OPEC policies influenced by the super-power USA. This also mentions how USA has made efforts in reducing its overdependence on OPEC for oil, and how it aims to preserve and enhance national resources so as to gain oil independence. The study is directed using mixed methodologies to examine how the consequences of OPEC policies are helping shape world economies, especially of the USA since it does not have very good relations with the OPEC member states in particular.

Full Text Available Most of the developing and under-developed countries have been facing a lot of challenges on the issue of economic growth, despite the fact that they are endowed with both natural and human resources. This study examines the determinants of real per Capita GDP growth in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC using a panel of twelve countries for the period of 1986 and 2010.The pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS, Fixed Effect (FE and Random Effect (RE models were employed to assess the relationship between CGDP and other economic variables used. The result showed that price level of consumptions (pc and investment share (ci are the important factors of CGDP that contribute to the economic growth of OPEC countries. The result also established that exchange rate (Xrat, price of GDP (p, purchasing power parity (ppp and ci have a positive influence on CGDP. The test statistic revealed that Random Effects Model (REM estimator is more efficient than OLS and that there is no significance difference between Fixed Effects Model (FEM and REM estimators.

This study examines the time series behaviour of oil production for OPEC member countries within a fractional integration modelling framework recognizing the potential for structural breaks and outliers. The analysis is undertaken using monthly data from January 1973 to October 2008 for 13 OPEC member countries. The results indicate there is mean reverting persistence in oil production with breaks identified in 10 out of the 13 countries examined. Thus, shocks affecting the structure of OPEC oil production will have persistent effects in the long run for all countries, and in some cases the effects are expected to be permanent. (author)

Reactivation of Indonesia's full membership to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) triggered discussion surrounding global petroleum governance. The country which decided to suspend its full membership at the end of 2008, currently labelled as net oil importer. However, in OPEC terms Indonesia never really left, instead of the organization termed it as a "suspension". Departing from the abovementioned context and perspectives, purpose of this essay is to answer the qu...

Forty-two children, all over one year of age, were given vincristine, cyclophosphamide, and sequentially timed cisplatin and VM-26 (OPEC) or OPEC and doxorubicin (OPEC-D) as initial treatment for newly diagnosed stage III or IV neuroblastoma. Good partial response was achieved in 31 patients (74%) overall and in 28 (78%) of 36 patients whose treatment adhered to the chemotherapy protocol, compared with a 65% response rate achieved in a previous series of children treated with pulsed cyclophosphamide and vincristine with or without doxorubicin. Only six patients, including two of the six children whose treatment did not adhere to protocol, failed to respond, but there were five early deaths from treatment-related complications. Tumor response to OPEC, which was the less toxic of the two regimens, was at least as good as tumor response to OPEC-D. Cisplatin-induced morbidity was clinically significant in only one patient and was avoided in others by careful monitoring of glomerular filtration rate and hearing. Other centers should test the efficacy of OPEC or equivalent regimens in the treatment of advanced neuroblastoma.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an international organization, composed of eleven developing countries that rely on oil revenues as their main source of income. The member countries include: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. These member countries collectively supply approximately 40 per cent of the world's oil output, and possess more than three-quarters of the world's total proven crude oil reserves. Currently, OPEC's approximate rate of oil production and export is 25 million barrels per day with Saudi Arabia alone contributing about one third of this rate. However, in the recent years the economy of major OPEC countries mainly Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, Indonesia and Iran has been significantly hindered by the instability of oil price as a result of fluctuations in the American dollar. This paper presented a simple economical assessment of OPEC's oil pricing policy from 1970 to 2000. Fluctuations of the oil price in American dollars were analysed against other major currencies. Their influences on the generated revenues were determined. In order to explore the most advantageous scenario, the oil pricing policy during that period was compared with two baskets of currencies. It was concluded that results indicated that OPEC members could have achieved a total current savings of at least 170 billion dollars if the price of oil was linked to a basket of currencies from 1970 to 2000. These savings were approximately equivalent to the revenues generated in at least 1 year of OPEC's average rate of oil production and export. It was recommended that OPEC members should consider restructuring their oil pricing policy by taking effective measures such as linking the price of oil to a basket of currencies in order to stabilize the price of oil and secure stable revenue generated from their oil production and export. 17 refs., 1 tab

Apart from the enigmatic FSU, there is little prospect of long term growth for non-OPEC oil supply and a strong likelihood that over the next few years the trend will flatten and then decline irrevocably. Decline will come faster if the spectacular discoveries in the deep water offshore plays of the southern Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico attract sufficient investment to match the loss of production in the North Sea. Deep water oil supply might be expected to reach a peak of as much as 6-7 million barrels a day by the time the North Sea has lost more than half its current output in the period beyond 2010. But economics play as strong a role as geology in real world oil business. Current indicators suggest that the prolific deep water wells are delivering less oil than expected and for a shorter period. That means less revenue. This paper outlines the disappointing performance of recent offshore fields, in both deep water and conventional water depths, and suggests consequences for global supply in the next decade. The 30 year success story of non-OPEC oil supply stems directly from the oil price revolution of the 1970s, without which the North Sea and most other offshore oil plays would not have been economic. The non-OPEC oil boom was also necessary because access to the cheap oil of the Persian Gulf and a few other plays were simply not available to the international private sector oil industry, as they had been before. That era is now over. It is ending not because oil is too cheap, but because there are powerful reasons for change. Firstly there is not enough oil left to make a difference beyond the next few years. Secondly, the economics of deep water and other offshore oil may not be attractive enough. Thirdly the doors to the Middle East are now being opened again to companies that can write those assets on their balance sheets and generate profits, allowing better return on investment and their higher share prices. There is no more compelling reason for a

Full Text Available The present study is conducted within the borders of lexicographic research, where corpora have increasingly become all-pervasive. The overall goal of this study is to compile an open-source OPEC[1] Word List (OWL that is available for lexicographic research and vocabulary learning related to English language learning for the purpose of oil marketing and oil industries. To achieve this goal, an OPEC Monthly Reports Corpus (OMRC comprising of 1,004,542 words was compiled. The OMRC consists of 40 OPEC monthly reports released between 2003 and 2015. Consideration was given to both range and frequency criteria when compiling the OWL which consists of 255 word types. Along with this basic goal, this study aims to investigate the coverage of the most well-recognised word lists, the General Service List of English Words (GSL (West ,1953 and the Academic Word List (AWL (Coxhead, 2000 in the OMRC corpus. The 255 word types included in the OWL are not overlapping with either the AWL or the GSL. Results suggest the necessity of making this discipline-specific word list for ESL students of oil marketing industries. The availability of the OWL has significant pedagogical contributions to curriculum design, learning activities and the overall process of vocabulary learning in the context of teaching English for specific purposes (ESP. Keywords: Vocabulary Profiling- Vocabulary Learning- Word List- OPEC- ESP OPEC stands for Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

This study examines the time series behaviour of oil production for OPEC member countries within a fractional integration modelling framework recognizing the potential for structural breaks and outliers. The analysis is undertaken using monthly data from January 1973 to October 2008 for 13 OPEC member countries. The results indicate there is mean reverting persistence in oil production with breaks identified in 10 out of the 13 countries examined. Thus, shocks affecting the structure of OPEC oil production will have persistent effects in the long run for all countries, and in some cases the effects are expected to be permanent. - Research Highlights: {yields}Mean reverting persistence in oil production with breaks identified in 10 out of the 13 countries examined. {yields} Standard analysis based on cointegration techniques and involving oil production should be examined in the more general context of fractional cointegraton. {yields} Analysis of outliers did not alter the main conclusions of the study.

Full Text Available The increasing consumption of oil-refined products on OPEC countries will have its impact on the availability of oil exports. The goal of this paper is to examine the determinants of oil refined products’ consumption for a panel consisting of 7 OPEC countries, namely, Algeria, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Emirates and Iran for the period of 1980–2010, by employing the recently developed panel data unit root tests and panel data cointegration techniques. Furthermore, conditional on finding cointegration, the paper extends the literature by employing the Pedroni Panel Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS Dynamic OLS (DOLS procedure to generate. The study estimates the demand for Gasoline, Kerosene and Diesel. An attempt is also made to assess the impact of this demand on the future availability of OPEC oil exports.

The IEA and OPEC jointly organised a workshop to discuss CO2-EOR and its role in supporting the early demonstration of CCS. The workshop was hosted by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, and held in Kuwait City on 7-8 February 2012. It brought together OPEC Member country experts and international CO2-EOR experts to discuss commercial, economic, technical, regulatory and policy aspects associated with the technology. Issues discussed include factors that can promote CO2-EOR ahead of ''pure'' CCS, barriers preventing uptake of the technology,and the range of policy interventions that could be employed to promote its use in OPEC Member countriesand other parts of the world. This report presents a synthesis of the discussions that took place, and lays the foundation for future analysis.

Fifteen adults with refractory or recurrent Hodgkin's disease were treated with a combination of: vincristine, prednisolone, etoposide and chlorambucil (OPEC). All had previously received mustine, vinblastine, procarbazine and prednisolone (MVPP) and seven had subsequently been treated with alternative regimens. Responses were achieved in four, but complete remission in only one. Toxicity was considerable and five died of treatment related complications. Only two are alive (one in complete remission) more than three years after therapy. The toxicity of the OPEC regimen outweighed its benefit in this group of poor prognosis patients.

This paper investigates the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth for OPEC members. The bounds test yields evidence of a long-run relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth for all OPEC members. Causality results suggest that economic growth is dependent on electricity consumption in five countries, less dependent in three countries, and independent in three countries. Because these countries do not necessarily share similar political and economic traits, no single universal policy implication can be inferred from the results. The disparities across these causality results, therefore, stress the importance of formulating causality explanations while taking into account the particularities of individual countries rather than blindly applying the conventional interpretations. (author)

The OPEC countries being arranged in business participation status in the infrastructure, particularly its recent trend, the main countries among them were analyzed in oil policy. As the oil price depends considerably upon the oil situation, the oil producing countries can secure a stabilized income by amplifying the exportation of oil products, small in price change and high in additional value. Having early started an uninterrupted direct participation in the infrastructure of oil consuming countries, Kuwait was securing a comparatively stabilized income therefrom. Among the OPEC countries participating in the infrastructure, Venezuela is at the head in number and refining capacity of refineries owned overseas. Later than Kuwait and Venezuela, Saudi Arabia started a participation in the infrastructure with a venturing foundation jointly with Texaco in 1988. Though proceeding with a participation in the infrastructure almost concurrently with Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi was almost limited to capital investments in the worldwide major oil companies. 6 refs., 22 tabs.

Angola is in the spot light lately as one of the major oil producers in the world, being the second largest oil producer in Africa. Therefore, in 2007, this country became a member of OPEC which brought to table several speculations concerning Angola's position facing the pressures and demands of an international organization. This article comes to analyse Angola's possible strategies when it comes to defending its economic interests and its participation in the price politics implemented by OPEC. All hypotheses considered in this article are analysed according to the Complex Interdependence Theory (Keohane and Nye). This International Affairs Theory is defined by a mutual and multilateral dependence between the nations. This way, we may conclude that even though Angola has a history of non fulfilling its agreements, the cooperation is made necessary because it is the most benefice alternative. The tendency is that when Angola starts fulfilling its quotas on the oil matter it will receive cooperation from OPEC and other nations in other areas where this country needs assistance. (author)

The World Trade Organization cannot deal comprehensively with restrictive export practices maintained by energy cartels such as the OPEC. The main reason for this is the absence of competition rules in the multilateral trading system. However, in spite of the fact that the WTO does not have rules on

The book focuses on different aspects of OPEC's impact on development. The chapter comprising Part I, by Russell A. Stone, discusses the potential for development and variations in this potential among the oil countries of the Middle East from a sociological point of view, indicating the wide range of aspects of society that will be affected by oil revenues. The chapters that follow are: Middle East Oil and Changing Political Constellations, Don Peretz; Problems of Transition to Economic Growth and Modernization in Middle Eastern Societies, Robert Sinai; OPEC: Its International Economic Significance, 1974-75, Girgis B. Ghobrial; Development Projects in the Middle East: Domestic Investments Utilizing Oil Revenues, Bertrand P. Boucher; Energy Interdependence and OPEC Government Use of the Foreign Sector, Marwan M. El Nasser; Higher Oil Prices and the Consuming Developing Countries: Consequences, Initiatives, and Potential Energy Policy Actions, Farouk A. Sankari; Kuwait's Economic Development Policies, Khalid M. Jaffar; Patterns of Aid: Kuwait, The Middle East, and the Developing World, Abdo I. Baaklini; Egypt and OPEC, Mohamed El Behairy; Ideology and Politics in Iraqi Oil Policy: The Nationalization of 1972, Abdul H. Raoof; Algeria's Oil Economy: Liberation or Neocolonialism, James A. Paul; The Impact of Oil Revenue on Education in Iran, Manuchehr Afzal. (MCW)

Full Text Available Global warming is attracting attention from policy makers due to its impacts such as floods, extreme weather, increases in temperature by 0.7°C, heat waves, storms, etc. These disasters result in loss of human life and billions of dollars in property. Global warming is believed to be caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activities including the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 from petroleum consumption. Limitations of the previous methods of predicting CO2 emissions and lack of work on the prediction of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC CO2 emissions from petroleum consumption have motivated this research.The OPEC CO2 emissions data were collected from the Energy Information Administration. Artificial Neural Network (ANN adaptability and performance motivated its choice for this study. To improve effectiveness of the ANN, the cuckoo search algorithm was hybridised with accelerated particle swarm optimisation for training the ANN to build a model for the prediction of OPEC CO2 emissions. The proposed model predicts OPEC CO2 emissions for 3, 6, 9, 12 and 16 years with an improved accuracy and speed over the state-of-the-art methods.An accurate prediction of OPEC CO2 emissions can serve as a reference point for propagating the reorganisation of economic development in OPEC member countries with the view of reducing CO2 emissions to Kyoto benchmarks--hence, reducing global warming. The policy implications are discussed in the paper.

Global warming is attracting attention from policy makers due to its impacts such as floods, extreme weather, increases in temperature by 0.7°C, heat waves, storms, etc. These disasters result in loss of human life and billions of dollars in property. Global warming is believed to be caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activities including the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from petroleum consumption. Limitations of the previous methods of predicting CO2 emissions and lack of work on the prediction of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) CO2 emissions from petroleum consumption have motivated this research. The OPEC CO2 emissions data were collected from the Energy Information Administration. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) adaptability and performance motivated its choice for this study. To improve effectiveness of the ANN, the cuckoo search algorithm was hybridised with accelerated particle swarm optimisation for training the ANN to build a model for the prediction of OPEC CO2 emissions. The proposed model predicts OPEC CO2 emissions for 3, 6, 9, 12 and 16 years with an improved accuracy and speed over the state-of-the-art methods. An accurate prediction of OPEC CO2 emissions can serve as a reference point for propagating the reorganisation of economic development in OPEC member countries with the view of reducing CO2 emissions to Kyoto benchmarks--hence, reducing global warming. The policy implications are discussed in the paper.

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is studying that whether the profitability from banking industry comes from the market power or it is a result of their high efficiency level. For this act, we have exerted structuralism and Chicago models versus X-and scale efficiency. Our sample covers the banks in the OPEC countries in the period 1995- 2009. The results for all countries in our sample show that X-and scale efficiency have the positive and significant effect on profitability but, concentration variable decreases profitability. Overall the results above support that the market power hypotheses are rejected for the OPEC countries, while efficiency gains appear to have a positive and significant impact on banking profitability.

The imbalance between energy resource availability, demand, and production capacity, coupled with inherent economic and environmental uncertainties make strategic energy resources planning, management, and decision-making a challenging process. In this paper, a descriptive approach has been taken to synthesize the world’s energy portfolio and the global energy balance outlook in order to provide insights into the role of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in maintaining “sta...

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) celebrated its 50. anniversary in September 2010. For half a century now, the cartel has succeeded in playing a major role on the energy market, despite divisions and changes. But today, its future is threatened, primarily in consequence of emerging alternative energies that are likely to blossom in the years to come due to rising crude oil prices

Most of the global PGM's reserves ,production and supply concentrate in Russia and South Africa .The two countries are preparing to create "platinum group OPEC"similar to the oil management organization OPEC in order to strengthen their international coordination and seize higher profits .China is thecountry with the largest platinum group metal consumption and imports(about 90%PGM is imported) in the world.No doubt it will be challenging to the healthy develop-ment of PGM industry in China if Platinum group OPEC is founded .Through analysis of distribution ,production,consump-tion structure and recycling utilization of global PGM,and the industrial production,consumption,import and export situ-ationsin China's PGM industry,the paper puts forward some counter measures from the geological exploration and develop-ment perspectives for our country .%俄罗斯和南非铂族金属的储量、产量和供给量在全球占有绝对的优势地位，这两个国家为了加强在国际铂族矿产品市场上的协调能力，获取更大的利益，2013年4月提出了要成立类似于石油OPEC的组织，共同打造铂族OPEC。中国作为世界上铂族金属消费量最大的国家，90％以上的铂族金属依靠进口，铂族OPEC的提出和组建必将对中国铂族工业的发展带来挑战。通过分析全球铂族金属的分布、产量、消费结构和回收利用情况，以及中国铂族金属工业生产、消费和进出口现状，从地质勘查和开发的角度提出了中国的应对措施。

The members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continue to voice their concerns about the adverse impact of the implementation of greenhouse gas emission reduction policies on the oil exporting countries. Referring to Article 4.8 of the UNFCCC, the OPEC is of the opinion tha

Full Text Available The imbalance between energy resource availability, demand, and production capacity, coupled with inherent economic and environmental uncertainties make strategic energy resources planning, management, and decision-making a challenging process. In this paper, a descriptive approach has been taken to synthesize the world’s energy portfolio and the global energy balance outlook in order to provide insights into the role of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC in maintaining “stability” and “balance” of the world’s energy market. This synthesis illustrates that in the absence of stringent policies, i.e., if historical trends of the global energy production and consumption hold into the future, it is unlikely that non-conventional liquid fuels and renewable energy sources will play a dominant role in meeting global energy demand by 2030. This should be a source of major global concern as the world may be unprepared for an ultimate shift to other energy sources when the imminent peak oil production is reached. OPEC’s potential to impact the supply and price of oil could enable this organization to act as a facilitator or a barrier for energy transition policies, and to play a key role in the global energy security through cooperative or non-cooperative strategies. It is argued that, as the global energy portfolio becomes more balanced in the long run, OPEC may change its typical high oil price strategies to drive the market prices to lower equilibria, making alternative energy sources less competitive. Alternatively, OPEC can contribute to a cooperative portfolio management approach to help mitigate the gradually emerging energy crisis and global warming, facilitating a less turbulent energy transition path while there is time.

On June 11, the the members of OPEC had a meeting at Qatar, and based on the current oil prices, decided not reducing their production quotes, maintaining the production total limit at 25.4 millions of b/d, established before the entering of American troops in Baghdad on April 22. Therefore, the OPEC prefers to consolidated his profits taking advantage of the positive news from prior weeks. Some factors seems to sustain the prices at an elevated level: the late retaking of Iraq exportations; the doubts on the real production capacity of the PDVSA; the inventories at under level to that recent years; the reduced production of Saudi Arab in June; and the support required by the non OPEC largest producers, including Mexico, Russia and Norwegian.

Since 1999, the OPEC has reinforced its quotas policy for the petroleum offer with the objective of a price of 22/28 US$/b. From September 1999 to September 2001, the OPEC had reached its target, but the economical impact of the September 11, 2001 terror events have led to a price evolution inferior to the expected one. However, one can think that these events have just accelerate an inevitable process which would have constrain the OPEC to abandon its hardly sustainable pricing policy. (J.S.)

The international oil market faced volatile conditions due to regional political factors, namely, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Political events were the major driving force of the industry in the early 1990s. The situation in the Gulf region has quieted considerably since March 1991 and, in response, the oil market and particularly crude oil prices have settled to their prewar range. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has attempted once again to exert its influence by regulating the crude oil market through supply management in its postwar meetings. The organization is faced with a number of challenges both in the short and long run in stabilizing crude oil prices. While in the short run the concern is how to prevent crude oil prices from dopping, in the long term the challenge is building adequate production and export capabilities for the future. 3 figs., 4 tabs.

World oil markets are characterized by fundamental market imbalances. The distruction of their historical structures featuring a vertical integration of oil companies resulted in an unstable market structure oscillating between cartel formation and dynamic competition. The sweet dreams of OPEC - to achieve rapid gains in market shares without dramatic price sacrifices - were completely frustrated. In the short run, the oil market will be rather inelastic.

Accurate estimation of ET from field crops/orchards is the basis for better irrigation water management. In areas like Mesilla Valley, NM, where water is scarce, it is even more important to precisely determine the crop ET. An OPEC energy balance system was run for 117 days (June 22 October 14, 2001) in a matured pecan farm at Mesilla Valley, NM. The actual evapotranspiration (ET) from pecan orchards was determined from the surface energy balance as a residual, having measured the net radiation, soil heat flux, and sensible heat components using the OPEC method. Since pecans are large trees, we have also examined the effect of including thermal energies stored in the air (Ga) and plant canopy (Gc), on top of the commonly used thermal energy stored in the soil (Gs), on surface energy balance, and hence ET. The results indicate that incorporating thermal energies stored in the air and canopy has a significant effect on total energy storage for shorter temporal resolutions, such as 30-minutes and an hour. Conversely, for longer temporal resolutions (e.g., diurnal and monthly averages), the effect of including thermal energies stored in the air and vegetation on total thermal energy storage is negligible. Our results also showed that the bulk of the total thermal energy storage (G = Gs + Ga + Gc) in the surface energy balance was stored in the soil (Gs). In addition, we have also determined the crop coefficient (Kc) of pecan by combining the actual ET obtained from the OPEC method and potential ET (ET0) calculated using weather data in the surrounding area. Our average pecan Kc values were comparable with the ones reported by other researchers using different methods. We conclude that the OPEC energy balance method can be used to calculate Kc values for pecan whereby farmers and extension agents use the calculated Kc values in combination with ET0 to determine the consumptive use of pecan trees.

Full Text Available This study has attempted to examine and compare the effects of 2007 financial crisis on inflation in OPEC countries and selected countries of G8, based on a panel data regression model during 2000-2010. It should be noted that the selected countries of G8 group are 5 industrial countries member of this group, including: America, Italy, Britain, France and Japan, that crisis has been seen faster in them than other countries. Growth economic variables (real sector of the economy, oil price and stock price index (i.e. financial market have been considered as affected shared variables of the financial crisis in both countries group. According to the obtained results, the only affected variable by the crisis in OPEC countries, is oil price which has positive and significant effect on inflation in the above mentioned countries so that one percent increase in oil price lead to about 0.08 percent increase on inflation, on the other hand, according to survey results there is no relationship between output and inflation in OPEC countries, so it reflects weak manufacturing structure sector (real sector of the economy in these countries

Full Text Available The well documented literature on the relation between energy consumption and climate change has been extended by the addition of renewable energy consumption. Several studies show its impact on technical efficiency, per capita income or carbon dioxide (CO2 emission levels for developed and developing countries. However, to the extent of our knowledge, very few of them state the importance of renewable energy for the countries where the main type of fossil fuels, oil, is exported. This study aims to explore the association between renewable energy, real gross domestic product (GDP, CO2 emission level, real oil prices as well as the proven oil reserves for seven members of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC. The analyses are conducted using panel data techniques, namely fixed effect – random effect tests. Our results show a positive and significant relation between renewable energy consumption, and real GDP and CO2 emission level. A statistically not significant coefficient is found for the relation between renewable energy and the proven oil reserves. The relation between energy and real oil prices is also insignificant.

This report assesses the possibility of increased oil production from 21 less developed non-OPEC countries (excluding the Middle East and Mexico) by 1985. The forecast is compared with those prepared by the World Bank, the International Energy Agency, and others. The 21 Latin American, African, and Far East (including Asia) countries produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day (BD) or 4.2% of world production, and they have 21 billion barrels of proved reserves, or 3.2% of the world total. In recent years these countries have consumed 3.1 million BD, some 0.9 million barrels in excess of their production. By 1985, the 21 countries may produce 3.9 million BD, an average annual increase of 5.0%; however, demand is expected to increase at an annual rate of 3.5% to 4.4 million BD. The net effect is that the 1985 aggregated supply-demand balance will be in deficit, by nearly 560 thousand BD, compared to slightly more than 930 thousand BD in 1976.

Oviduct epithelial cells are important for the nourishment and survival of ovulated oocytes and early embryos, and they respond to the steroid hormones estrogen and progesterone. Endocrine-disrupting polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (PHAH) are environmental toxins that act in part through the ligand-activated transcription factor arylhydrocarbon receptor (AhR; dioxin receptor), and exposure to PHAH has been shown to decrease fertility. To investigate effects of PHAHs on the oviduct epithelium as a potential target tissue of dioxin-type endocrine disruptors, we have established a novel telomerase-immortalized oviduct porcine epithelial cell line (TERT-OPEC). TERT-OPEC exhibited active telomerase and the immunoreactive epithelial marker cytokeratin but lacked the stromal marker vimentin. TERT-OPEC contained functional estrogen receptor (ER)-alpha and AhR, as determined by the detection of ER-alpha- and AhR-specific target molecules. Treatment of TERT-OPEC with the AhR ligand 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) resulted in a significant increase in the production of the cytochrome P-450 microsomal enzyme CYP1A1. Activated AhR caused a downregulation of ER nuclear protein fraction and significantly decreased ER-signaling in TERT-OPEC as determined by ERE-luciferase transient transfection assays. In summary, the TCDD-induced and AhR-mediated anti-estrogenic responses by TERT-OPEC suggest that PHAH affect the predominantly estrogen-dependent differentiation of the oviduct epithelium within the fallopian tube. This action then alters the local endocrine milieu, potentially resulting in a largely unexplored cause of impaired embryonic development and female infertility.

Full Text Available Economic integration at global and regional level is one of the most important consequences of mutual relationships of countries. Given that capital is the stimulant of economic growth and development and developing countries are often faced with lack of capital, they are trying to compensate this with foreign borrowing but regarding crises resulted from it foreign direct investment is being used as its substitute. The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of economic integration and globalization on FDI attraction. In order to achieve the above goal foreign direct investment equation for Asian countries is estimated by Stata software using panel data during 2001-2011 based on theoretical literature of gravity model and using of econometric methods. Our results, as we expected reveal that there is a positive relation between economic integration and foreign investment. Comparison of results in different cases shows that co-integration has more impacts on FDI for OPEC Countries under globalization conditions. In globalization cases, integration is the best choice for attracting of FDI in OPEC.

In Part I, I model a jurisdiction where residents differ by income, and housing confers benefits on neighbors. By majority vote, residents choose minima on consumption of housing that differ by neighborhood, and they separate into neighborhoods by income. In practice, such laws take the form of minimum lot sizes, bans on multi-family units, building codes, and other restrictions. This policy maximizes a benefit-cost welfare criterion. Alternative policies include no minima and a uniform minimum citywide, based on libertarian and utilitarian welfare criteria, respectively. I compare the policies in terms of efficiency, implementability, and distributional consequences, and give numerical examples based on U.S. data. Willingness to pay for the benefit-cost optimum is convex in income. This helps to explain why neighborhood stratification by income has outpaced stratification of income itself in U.S metropolitan areas since 1970. In the examples, gains to a rich household are in the thousands and losses to the poor in the hundreds of dollars annually. In Part II, I estimate the stockpile of petroleum sufficient to contain a price shock perpetrated by the OPEC. I estimate world demand for petroleum such that the long run price elasticity exceeds that in the short run, and supply from non-OPEC producers with a similar kind of lagged response. Given this structure for elasticities, OPEC profits from sudden increases in price. I simulate interaction among consumers, non-OPEC producers, OPEC, and an International Energy Agency (IEA) that punishes OPEC by releasing oil onto the market. I endow the IEA with increasingly large stockpiles until they suffice to limit price shocks to specified levels. Every 5 reduction in the shock raises present-valued world GDP by about 650 billion. The IEA now has 1.4 billion barrels of petroleum, including 700 million in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A 3 billion barrel stockpile would suffice to reduce a 35 price shock to 20, raising

Full Text Available Background: infant mortality rate is one of the main health indicators for assessing the health system’s performance over the world. We aim to examine the socioeconomic and health system factors affect infant mortality in OPEC from 2004 to 2013. Methods: was used to examine the effects of some of the key explanatory factors (total fertility rate per women, GDP per capita (current US$, public health expenditure as % of total health expenditure and female labor force participation rate on infant mortality in OPEC from 2004 to 2013. These data were obtained from World Bank and World Health Organization data bank. Results: our results showed the total fertility rate had a positive and significant impact on infant mortality in the studied period. Also, there are negative significant associations between GDP per capita and public health expenditure with infant mortality. We did not observe any relationship between infant mortality and female labour force participation rate in the studied countries from 2004 to 2013. Conclusion: total fertility rate per women, GDP per capita (current US$, public health expenditure as % of total health expenditure were identified as the main factors affecting on infant mortality in OPEC over the ten years (2004-2013. This study enables health policy-makers to better understand the factors affecting on infant mortality and thereby take necessary steps in managing and decreasing the infant mortality rate in the studied countries.

欧佩克(OPEC)是一个稳定的、政府间石油供应组织,其石油政策的核心是制定符合其自身经济和政治利益的石油政策.影响欧佩克石油政策的因素很多且非常复杂.本文在对欧佩克成立以来石油政策进行全面回顾的基础上,根据国际石油市场新形势和新情况,结合欧佩克石油中长期发展战略等,提出了影响欧佩克石油政策的7个主要因素:世界石油供需形势,世界经济发展状况,市场投机炒作,欧佩克成员国派别、政治体制和外交政策,石油进口国及消费国能源政策,非欧佩克对欧佩克的竞争博弈以及替代能源.这些因素并非是单一的和独立的,其互相联系,互相促进,共同影响和推动欧佩克未来石油政策的走向.未来欧佩克以全球石油供需形势为基础,统筹考虑世界经济发展状况、市场投机炒作等因素,实施一种使油价逐步接近和达到替代能源的价格水平的比较适中的油价政策.欧佩克未来石油政策更趋理性和合理.%Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a permanent, intergovernmental organization of oil supply. Carrying out the oil price policy is the core of OPEC oil policy, which accords with its economic and political interests. There are a variety of influencing factors on the oil policy of OPEC which are interrelated with each other. Based on comprehensively looking into the oil policy of OPEC, and taking into account new situations and circumstances of the international oil market, together with its medium-term and long-term development strategies, 7 principal influencing factors on the oil policy of OPEC have been put forward in this paper, i.e., the supply-demand situation for crude oil all over the world, the development condition of the world economy, speculative attacks in the oil market, the factions inside OPEC, the political system and diplomatic policies of OPEC members, energy policies of the oil importing

Full Text Available In this study, we examine the relationship between GDP, export, import, private sector investment and inflation on insurance per capita of OPEC countries. Insurance is a non-banking institution that by making sure and secure, can make and develop manufacturing and service rendering easier. Insurance companies can make financial steady and reduce stress. So, it plays essential role in economy. For this aim, data over the period 2003-2011 is collected. We use regression and SPSS software for analysis. Results for 80 year – country show that there was a positive and significant correlation between GDP, export, import, inflation and insurance per capita, which shows whenever productivity increases, insurance increases too. Results also show that there was a positive relationship between import and insurance per capita. In addition, results show that there was a positive and significant relationship between inflation and dependent variable. However, there was no significant relationship between exports and insurance per capita. The results show that there was no significant relationship between GDP and insurance per capita and finally, there was a non-significant and negative relationship between private sector investment and insurance per capita.

Although the oil price is still far from its historical maximum, the oil market is today in crisis. To explain this situation the author discusses the nature of the supply constraints. The reserves are today better known and so more plentiful than at a previous period of the oil history and the russian production since 2004 is stagnating. The main factor seems to be the OPEC policy and in particular the will of limiting the oil production to defend upper prices. (A.L.B.)

The communique from the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held on 5 November 2012 in Mexico City included the following passage: ''We welcome the report prepared by the IEA, the IEF and the OPEC on increasing transparency in international gas and coal markets and ask these organizations to propose practical steps by mid-2013 that G20 countries could take to implement them.'' The attached joint paper represents a collaborative effort by the three international organizations to fulfill the request from the G20. The joint paper was submitted to the G20 on 24 May 2013.

The episode of the aborted destitution of Pres. H. Chavez in Venezuela is a typical example of the evolution of the international relations since the September 11 2001 terror events. Venezuela is the 4. world oil producer and the first foreign supplier of the US, but Venezuela is also an active orchestrator of the radicalization of the OPEC policy of quotas and prices. Thus, the petroleum question is more present than ever and represents the exclusive ideological reference of the US foreign policy. The era when the US were doing the effort to adapt their policy to the OPEC rules is now almost gone. (J.S.)

1973年“石油危机”爆发后，欧佩克产油国获得了本国石油资源主权，该组织也开始执行独立的石油政策。维护产油国利益，确保产油国获得稳定的石油收入是欧佩克的根本目标。因此，欧佩克在制定石油政策时，一方面要避免过低的油价损害产油国的利益，另一方面又要避免油价过高刺激替代能源的发展，影响石油的长期需求。1973年至今，欧佩克政策经历了4个发展阶段。但从欧佩克政策的实践来看，欧佩克产量调整虽然能对国际油价波动产生一定影响，但对国际油价的走势却是无能为力。欧佩克的油价政策也经历了一个不断弱化的过程。但是，据此得出欧佩克不具备垄断势力的结论仍过于武断。“卡特尔”建立的初衷并非是左右价格走势，而是要获得垄断利润。因此，与关注油价波动和走势相比，关注欧佩克维持高油价均衡的能力对于判断欧佩克的市场属性更为重要。%After the 1973 oil crisis, Oil producing countries of OPEC claimed the sovereignty of its own oil resources and OPEC started to implement its independ- ent oil policy. As a tool for protecting the interests of oil producing countries and making sure oil producing countries stable oil export revenues. OPEC' s oil poll- cy takes two factors into consideration: firstly, preventing the very low oil prices which can detriment the interests of oil producing countries; secondly, preventing the very high oil prices which will stimulate the development of other energies and harm the long - term demand of oil. Since 1973, OPEC' s policy has gone through four stages. Based on the implementation of OPEC' s policy, although OPEC' s oil production adjustment can deliver certain influences on the fluctuations of oil prices, OPEC has limited control to the long - term trend of oil price development. However, it doesn' t mean OPEC has no monopoly powers. The truth is

These four newsletters from the South Carolina Department of Education focus on teaching and serving students with disabilities. The first newsletter includes articles addressing ways that special education professionals can be good to themselves so they can meet the needs of exceptional children; strategies for instructing children with attention…

Few analysts address the socio-economic vulnerability faced by large oil producers countries that restricts their oil supply strategies. However, such as net import countries may be vulnerable to oil supply, large oil exporters countries may also become vulnerable due to their socio-economic dependence on oil, as export revenues are so important to their wealth generation and their populations' well-fare status. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the vulnerabilities of some oil exporters as the OPEC's member-countries, Mexico and Norway face, or may face, and that may restrict their degree of freedom for productive decision making (including investments) and for elaborating oil supply strategies (aiming at taking a larger share of the oil revenue). In order to do that this paper is divided in 3 sections. Initially, socio-economic vulnerability indicators for the oil exporting countries are presented, built and analyzed. Socio-economic vulnerability indicators comprehend, for instance, the following dimensions: physical, productive, fiscal, commercial, macroeconomic and social. The next section regards the application of a multi criteria method, the AHP - Analytic Hierarchy Process in order to summarize and organize the indicators. Finally, implications of the socio-economic vulnerabilities of these oil export countries for the world oil supply and price are derived. (author)

OPEC本质上是一个石油卡特尔，在国际石油市场具有较强的控制力。产量配额机制是该组织维护集团利益的重要手段，然而其实施却需要集团内部成员的多边合作。历次石油出口，对OPEC各成员国而言都是一次产量博弈；因此，本文在非合作博弈论的框架下构建了完全信息静态博弈模型与完全信息动态博弈模型，对OPEC内部各成员国之间的产量博弈行为进行分析。研究表明，单次产量博弈下，各成员国无可避免落入“囚徒困境”，打破产量配额。然而当出口博弈进行多次，并且博弈结束时间不可知，成员国之间的合作成为可能，个体理性与集体理性的冲突得以解决。%As a petroleum Cartel, OPEC has great influence on the international oil market. Based on multilateral cooperation of its member countries, OPEC utilizes the production quotas mechanism to maintain its monopoly profits. Every oil export is a production game for its member countries. Based on Non-Cooperative Game Theory frame, this paper established a complete information game theory model to study the production game behavior of OPEC members. The research indicated that, under the circumstance of one time production game, every member country will inevitably fall into prisoner ’s dilemma and violate the production quotas agreement. However, when the game will do many times and no member country knows the end time, the cooperation between every member become possible; and that ’s the end of the conflict between individual rationality and collective rationality.

Acute leukemia and lymphoma varieties of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) usually carry a poor prognosis. While etoposide is generally useful for treating ATL, especially as a daily oral maintenance regimen, etoposide has not proven effective in severe types of ATL efficient in some patients. Of 87 ATL patients whom we have treated, 51 had acute leukemia, 22 lymphoma and 14 progressive chronic leukemia. Seventy-nine patients were treated with a long term maintenance combination protocol, OPEC/MPEC (weekly doses of vincristine, 0.7 mg/m2 or methotrexate, 14 mg/m2; prednisolone, 20 mg/m2; etoposide, 70 mg/m2 and cyclophosphamide, 200 mg/m2). The other 8 patients, 3 with acute leukemia, 2 with lymphoma and 3 with progressive chronic leukemia, were treated with daily oral administration of 25 mg of etoposide and 10 mg of prednisolone (DOEP). The dose administered was modified in individual cases to maintain the granulocyte count and reduce the number of ATL cells. Considering both protocols, a complete response and a partial response were achieved in 31.0% and 58.6% patients, respectively. Median survival times (MST) of all patients and, acute leukemia, lymphoma and progressive chronic leukemia types were 7.5, 6.7, 9.6 and 12.4 months, respectively. Respective MST of patients treated with OPEC/MPEC or DOEP protocols were 7.1 and 18.0 months. Relatively normal WBC counts, lower lactate dehydrogenase concentration and normal calcium concentration, limited numbers of anatomic sites involved, good performance status and good response to chemotherapy were significantly associated with long survival time. Drug toxicity was not apparent, and about half of patients were treated in an outpatient setting.

Two foreign oil companies began exploiting Kuwait's oil resources in 1934 with an exclusive, 75-year concession, which was modified in 1960 to allow 60% ownership by the government and 40% by private Kuwaiti investors as the Kuwait National Petroleum Company. The government took over full control of the original company in 1975, and established the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) in 1980. The author reports on oil production (down to 900,000 from a peak of 3.28 million barrels per day) and current revenue of $8.7 billion. Government policies emphasize optimum exploitation and conservation, diversification of the industry and the economy, and development of associated natural gas. Kuwait also participates in foreign production and exploration, investment in domestic and foreign companies, and pollution control. 9 figures.

This book addresses the economics of exhaustible resources under monopoly and competition. The conventional wisdom - that oil prices, after hesitation in the early 80's will move upward faster than world inflation - is questioned along with the models supporting these predictions. The prospect that world oil prices may collapse in the near future is treated as a definite possibility. The findings are optimistic for consumers and should serve to reorient energy policy.

A large review is proposed concerning prospectives on hydrocarbons reserves, exploitation, production, distribution and consumption. It is shown that oil demand will certainly increase, especially in Asia, drawn by the transportation sector. The French Petroleum Institute gives hints on the impacts of new technology applications (such as in exploration, deep offshore, enhanced recovery...), the development of natural gas, heavy oils and refining costs. Facing the growing energy demand in the world, the petroleum market increasingly uses non-Opec oil but this could have limits; an ancient president of the Opec gives his opinion on an Opec possible comeback. Simulation models concerning economic growth, oil and gas demand, are evaluated and compared. In order to increase their sales, petroleum companies now consider design and services in their gasoline service stations. It is also shown that environmental issues are now a major drive for innovation in the petroleum sector service stations.

Surging domestic energy consumption in the Gulf region is increasingly threatening oil and gas export revenues. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are initiating multiple experiments to improve energy efficiency and introduce renewable energy, prompting the emergence of new domestic actors. Still, the legacy of rentierism hinders many of these efforts.The former antagonistic stance of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in the international climate regime is being replaced by cautious signals of a more constructive engagement, such as in the willingness of Qatar to host COP 18.The resulting opportunities for constructive and innovative dialogues should not be wasted, and premature statements from Northern governments predicting a failure for COP 18 might be counterproductive. Climate diplomacy should instead try to strengthen the position of those groups in favour of new domestic energy policies.Technical support for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) pilot projects in the GCC by the EU and other progressive countries in the climate regime could serve as a catalyst for creating sustained synergies between new energy and climate policies in the region.(Author)

To present the importance of understanding American commercial influence through the utilization of geopolitics while referencing the economic viability and public policy in Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries nations, relative to oil production, consumption and the price per barrel. For the purpose, of successfully completing western led hydrocarbon construction activities Internationally. Additionally, this thesis will theorize several non-traditional strategies that will allow western led construction contractors and managers to effectively maintain and foster relationships with international trade labor. Allowing for more insight and project planning to complete successful and safe projects.

This paper discusses the three main factors that will determine how OPEC oil production will impact on energy markets. OPEC reassured the market in September 2001, following the terrorist attack in New York that it would not cut oil production, but by December 2001, OPEC was threatening that it would cut production unless many key non-OPEC producers collaborated to shore up prices. On January 1, 2002, OPEC members went ahead with a quota reduction, based on pledges of cuts from the non-OPEC oil exporting countries. World economies, oil demand, and the path which the U.S. economy will take during 2002 is critical in determining what happens next in terms of oil production from OPEC. Another important factor is knowing whether non-OPEC producers will actually cut output to a significant extent. The most critical factor will be the response by OPEC members if non-OPEC exporting countries do not keep their promise.

Iran is one of the world's biggest petroleum exporting countries and a dominant actor in the Gulf region but in spite of this, the Iran government is faced with the same problems that developing states - and the Gulf states in particular - normally have. Problems on a national scale result mostly from the fact that most of the domestic petroleum production is also produced domestically, so there is less petroleum for exports. Iran's partnership in the international climate regime is particularly interesting as renewable energy is readily available on Iran terrain. This will motivate the country to establish a sustainable energy supply regime. (orig.)

Treaty Organization OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe SCO...states’ principles or actions incense an authoritarian export nation.221 While the 1973 oil embargo may seem a tempting example of this fear, a gas- OPEC ...energy security. During this oil crisis, the United Kingdom was still subjected to OPEC pressure because BP followed the guidance of OPEC instead of

This paper attempts to interpret OPEC's decision making process by analysing the political-economic behaviour of the Member Countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The economic objectives of OPEC members is first discussed under the hypothesis of cooperation versus competition. A loose marketing arrangement among OPEC members is then assumed. Both approaches, pure economics and Real-politik lead to the same conclusion: the likelihood of a volatile price increase.

United States discovered the consequences of relying on foreign oil during the OPEC oil embargo. Initially, the U.S. pursued policies to mitigate the...Forty years ago, the United States discovered the consequences of relying on foreign oil during the OPEC oil embargo. Initially, the U.S. pursued...Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ( OPEC ) oil embargo, can adversely affect the American economy. The visible examples of the importance

This paper describes a structural econometric model of the world oil market that can be used to analyse oil market developments and risks. Oil demand depends on domestic economic activity and the real price of oil. Oil supply for non-OPEC producers, based on competitive behaviours, is constrained by geological and institutional conditions. Oil prices are determined by a 'price rule' that includes market conditions and OPEC behaviour. Policy simulations indicate that oil demand and non-OPEC supply are rather inelastic to changes in price, while OPEC decisions about quota and capacity utilisation have a significant, immediate impact on oil prices.

This study evaluates the implications of different geopolitics scenarios over the productive and technological strategies for exploiting national oil resources. Initially, it discusses the international oil market fundamentals, focusing the dynamics of the light-heavy prices differential. Then, it analysis the effects three possible scenarios over such market fundamentals: Strong OPEC due to 'reinforcement of the price band mechanism discipline'; Weak OPEC due to 'market contestation' (productive empowerment of non-OPEC countries or quitting of OPEC member-countries interested in getting more productive autonomy - such as Algeria, Nigeria and, eventually, Iraq); and, Weak OPEC due to 'strategies to reduce geopolitics vulnerability' (minimization of supply disruption risks). Afterwards, it evaluates the impacts of those scenarios over the productive and technological strategies for exploiting national oil resources. Finally, it concludes that the scenarios of Strong OPEC and Weak OPEC due to 'strategies to reduce geopolitics vulnerability' are the most favorable for the exploitation of national oil resources, whilst the scenario Weak OPEC due to 'market contestation' would challenge the oil companies operating in the country to generate productive and technology strategies which strongly promotes E and P cost reduction in Brazil in order to maintain the competitiveness of the national oil. (author)

Integrated Program of Action MFN Most Favored Nation OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries PNE Peaceful Nuclear Explosion... Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in world politics since 1973 also gave added incentive to look west. Pakistani leaders saw greater benefits in...Nations (ASEAN) was established through the initiatives of five countries in the region: Indonesia , Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand

The oviduct plays a crucial role in sperm storage, maintenance of sperm viability and sperm transport to the site of fertilisation. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of oviductal cell culture passage number, oviductal cell age and spermatozoa-oviduct coincubation times on gene expression in oviductal cells. Immortalised oviductal epithelial cells (OPEC) obtained from two different cell passages (36 and 57) were subcultured three times with and without spermatozoa for 24 h (control group). In a second study, OPEC were cocultured with spermatozoa for different time intervals (0, 4, 12 and 24 h). Expression of adrenomedullin (ADM), heat shock 70 kDa protein 8 (HSPA8) and prostaglandin E synthase (PGES) in OPEC was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The expression of ADM and HSPA8 was decreased significantly in OPEC cells from Passage 57, particularly in the later subculture group. These effects on HSPA8, but not ADM, expression in OPEC were further altered after coculture with spermatozoa for 24 h. We also demonstrated that spermatozoa-oviduct coculture for 12 and 24 h resulted in significantly higher expression of ADM, HSPA8 and PGES in OPEC. Overall, the data suggest that the OPEC lose some of their properties as a result of oviductal cell aging and that there are spermatozoa-oviduct interactions leading to increased oviductal cell gene expression.

More often, oil supply has been modeled on the basis of resource availability and demand. The impact of strategy between oil producers has largely been ignored or overly simplified. In this paper, we formulate a model that embodies a weak and strong OPEC for varied rates of reserve additions. With this economic equilibrium model which has the capability to generate a supply side peak in oil production, we show that although reserves of conventional crude oil may seem abundant. OPEC has the ability to lead to substantial crude oil reserve depletion in non-OPEC countries by 2050 given likely depletion rates.

This paper investigates rationale explanations of OPEC's strategies. Accounting for market characteristics in particular the sluggishness of demand and supply allows to explain price jumps as rational OPEC strategies from a narrow economic perspective (up and down) as well as from political objectives (at least up) due to the political payoff from standing up against the 'West'. Although the temptation to accrue this political payoff was and remains high, the narrow economic profit motive coupled with an imperfect cooperation among OPEC members explains past price volatility and high prices much better than the usual reference to political events. A more specific prediction is that OPEC will switch back to setting prices since the current quantity strategy encourages oil importing countries to appropriate rents in particular in connection with the need to mitigate global warming. (orig.)

Market share OPEC lost in defending higher prices from 1979-1985 is being steadily regained and is projected to exceed 50% by 2000. World oil markets are likely to be as vulnerable to monopoly influence as they were 20 years ago, as OPEC regains lost market share. The US economy appears to be as exposed as it was in the early 1970s to losses from monopoly oil pricing. A simulated 2-year supply reduction in 2005-6 boosts OPEC revenues by roughly half a trillion dollars and costs the US economy an approximately equal amount. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve appears to be of little benefit against such a determined, multi-year supply curtailment either in reducing OPEC revenues or protecting the US economy. Increasing the price elasticity of oil demand and supply in the US and the rest of the world, however, would be an effective strategy.

Market share OPEC lost in defending higher prices from 1979-1985 is being steadily regained and is projected to exceed 50% by 2000. World oil markets are likely to be as vulnerable to monopoly influence as they were 20 years ago, as OPEC regains lost market share. The U.S. economy appears to be as exposed as it was in the early 1970s to losses from monopoly oil pricing. A simulated 2-year supply reduction in 2005-6 boosts OPEC revenues by roughly half a trillion dollars and costs the U.S. economy an approximately equal amount. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve appears to be of little benefit against such a determined, multi-year supply curtailment either in reducing OPEC revenues or protecting the U.S. economy. Increasing the price elasticity of oil demand and supply in the U.S. and the rest of the world, however, would be an effective strategy.

This paper investigates the price spread between West Texas Intermediate and Brent during periods of supply disruptions. Using a sample of 50 events of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - related unplanned upstream production outages, this paper documents a statistically significant tightening in the price differential. The finding is robust even after accounting for 22 OPEC - related political conflicts, 104 extreme weather conditions in the Atlantic basin, and the per...

Analysis of estimated total recoverable oil volume (field size) of 186 well-known giant oil fields of the world (>0.5 billion bbl of oil, discovered prior to 1981), exclusive of the United States and Canada, demonstrates general increases in field sizes through time. Field sizes were analyzed as a group and within subgroups of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC countries. From 1981 through 1996, the estimated volume of oil in the 186 fields for which adequate data were available increased from 617 billion to 777 billion bbl of oil (26%). Processes other than new field discoveries added an estimated 160 billion bbl of oil to known reserves in this subset of the world's oil fields. Although methods for estimating field sizes vary among countries, estimated sizes of the giant oil fields of the world increased, probably for many of the same reasons that estimated sizes of oil fields in the United States increased over the same time period. Estimated volumes in OPEC fields increased from a total of 550 billion to 668 billion bbl of oil and volumes in non-OPEC fields increased from 67 billion to 109 billion bbl of oil. In terms of percent change, non-OPEC field sizes increased more than OPEC field sizes (63% versus 22%). The changes in estimated total recoverable oil volumes that occurred within three 5-year increments between 1981 and 1996 were all positive. Between 1981 and 1986, the increase in estimated total recoverable oil volume within the 186 giant oil fields was 11 billion bbl of oil; between 1986 and 1991, the increase was 120 billion bbl of oil; and between 1991 and 1996, the increase was 29 billion bbl of oil. Fields in both OPEC and non-OPEC countries followed trends of substantial reserve growth.

both issues are cases in which narrowly self-interested policies threaten broader community pur- poses and in which exclusivist policy takes from the...establish patterns for enhanced international management of access to future scarce resources. Second, the exclusivist pricing policy of the OPEC...breaking the OPEC cartel and its exclusivist price policy. Currently there is excess producing capacity within the world’s oil fields estimated at

Oropharyngeal and esophageal candidiasis (OPEC) is a frequent opportunistic mycosis in immunocompromised patients. Azole-resistant OPEC is a refractory form of this infection occurring particularly in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients. The procedures developed by the Antifungal Subcommittee of the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) are an important advance in standardization of in vitro antifungal susceptibility methodology. In order to further understand the relationship between NCCLS methodology and antifungal therapeutic response, we studied the potential correlation between in vitro susceptibility to fluconazole and in vivo response in a rabbit model of fluconazole-resistant OPEC. MICs of fluconazole were determined by NCCLS methods. Three fluconazole-susceptible (FS) (MIC, /=64 microgram/ml) isolates of Candida albicans from prospectively monitored HIV-infected children with OPEC were studied. FR isolates were recovered from children with severe OPEC refractory to fluconazole, and FS isolates were recovered from those with mucosal candidiasis responsive to fluconazole. Fluconazole at 2 mg/kg of body weight/day was administered to infected animals for 7 days. The concentrations of fluconazole in plasma were maintained above the MICs for FS isolates throughout the dosing interval. Fluconazole concentrations in the esophagus were greater than or equal to those in plasma. Rabbits infected with FS isolates and treated with fluconazole had significant reductions in oral mucosal quantitative cultures (P OPEC due to C. albicans.

This paper develops a simple theoretical model of the effect of an oil price increase on exchange rates. The model shows that the direction of this effect depends on a comparison of the direct balance of payments burden of the higher oil price with the indirect balance of payments benefits of OPEC spending and investment. In the short run, what matters is whether the US share of world oil imports is more or less than its share of OPEC asset holdings; in the long run, whether its share of oil imports is more or less than its share of OPEC imports. Casual empiricism suggests that the initial effect and the long run effect will run in opposite directions; an oil price increase will initially lead to dollar appreciation, but eventually leads to dollar depreciation.

An understanding of the relationship of economic growth and potential petroleum product demand is needed to forecast the potential for North American oil demand growth as well as knowledge of world supply and price. The bullish expectations for economic growth in the US and Canada auger well for North American refiners and marketeers. The growth in world economic output forecast, however, means a larger oil demand and an increase in OPEC`s pricing power. Such price increases could depress North American oil demand growth. (author)

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change contains explicit reference to the need to protect the interests of countries whose economies are particularly vulnerable to climate change mitigation measures. A recent study by the OPEC Secretariat showed that net exporters of fossil fuel in general, and OPEC in particular, would suffer from losses in export revenue as a result of climatic change mitigation measures. In this new study, an attempt is made to identify in more detail those countries that are likely to be most affected by such measures. 3 refs., 3 figs., 2 tabs.

A brief overview is given of the title subject. Attention is paid to the production of oil from OPEC and from non-OPEC countries, the effect of the Gulf War and the developments in the late Soviet Union on the supply and demand of the oil, and the volatility of the oil price. Future developments of the oil price are discussed on the basis of a risk scenario, which takes into account the return of Irak and Kuwait on the oil market and the low production of oil from the USSR. 2 figs.

Sensible heat flux estimates from a simple, one-propeller eddy correlation system (OPEC) were compared with those from a sonic anemometer eddy correlation system (SEC). In accordance with similarity theory, the performance of the OPEC system improved with increasing height of the sensor above the surface. Flux totals from the two systems at sites with adequate fetch were in excellent agreement after frequency response corrections were applied. The propeller system appears suitable for long periods of unattended measurement. The sensible heat flux measurements can be combined with net radiation and soil heat flux measurements to estimate latent heat as a residual in the surface energy balance.

Following the Yom Kippur war of October 1973, OPEC raises the price of oil by 70% along with a 5% reduction in oil production. Len Saunders a highly skilled and knowledgeable British engineer for Jaguar motors, is approached by the UK energy commission in the January of 1974 to create a new propulsion system; using a secret document from a German WW2 scientist, that they have come into possession of. Len Saunders sets to work on creating the holy grail of energy. Seven years later 1981, Haidar Farooq the Kuwait oil minister working at OPEC and head of a secret organisation named Black Gold bec

Canada has chosen to define its 174 billion barrels of oil sand bitumen reserves as crude oil deposits, putting the country on a par with Saudi Arabia in potential oil production. However, the physical and economic definition of calling oil sand bitumen crude oil needs to be questioned. On the face of it, these definitions make Canada look as powerful as OPEC's leading producer, or Russia, on the world oil market. However, a fuller analysis shows that Canadian oil sand is quite different from crude oil and that Canada will have little if any effect on the global oil market, or on OPEC. (author)

In both the U.S. and the world today the most critical price system problem is the spectacular crude price set by the OPEC monopoly. In the U.S. this $10.00 plus price currently sets the price of 60% of our crude petroleum input. Therefore, the most powerful method available to reduce U.S. crude input price inflation is to reduce the OPEC monopoly price by at least $2 or 20%. At this price, it would supposedly approximate the long run cost of such energy. The situation is reviewed and recommendations and a summary are provided.

This paper investigates the behavior of the world oil price based on the first-generation target zone model. Using anecdotal data during the period of 1988-1999, we found that OPEC has tried to maintain a weak target zone regime for the oil price. Our econometric tests suggest that the movement of the oil price is not only manipulated by actual and substantial interventions by OPEC but also tempered by market participants' expectations of interventions. As a consequence, the non-linear model based on the target zone theory has very good forecasting ability when the oil price approaches the upper or lower limit of the band. (author)

This paper investigates the behavior of the world oil price based on the first-generation target zone model. Using anecdotal data during the period of 1988-1999, we found that OPEC has tried to maintain a weak target zone regime for the oil price. Our econometric tests suggest that the movement of the oil price is not only manipulated by actual and substantial interventions by OPEC but also tempered by market participants' expectations of interventions. As a consequence, the non-linear model based on the target zone theory has very good forecasting ability when the oil price approaches the upper or lower limit of the band.

This article discusses the proposal to set up a cartel of the gas producing countries to regulate the price of gas - a gas Opec - which reflects the industry's chagrin that trade is not controlled by gas companies and the liberation sweeping energy markets may not be beneficial to some of the producing countries. The question of participation in a gas Opec is raised, and the internal concerns of Gazprom which still holds a monopoly within Russia are discussed. The countries with major reserves and production of natural gas are listed. (UK)

Algeria's culture of state monopoly and single party rule has been set aside as the country appears to have resolutely chosen globalisation and liberalisation of its markets. The 2-page article is followed by an interview with the Algerian Minister of Energy and President of OPEC for 2008, explaining the energy policy of Algeria.

levels, due in part to an increase in crude oil production by non-OPEC producers. Naturally, nominal prices increased in the 1970s as a result of the...million barrels per day. After 2002, OPEC’s crude oil production has increased every year, reaching an average of 35.4 million barrels per day in

coal development and export will worsen. The production of natural gas will also decrease along with decreasing crude oil production . Even atomic power...amount of required crude oil production of the consolidated balance of OPEC, including the declining sub- stitute energy supply capacity, is

Assistance Advisory Group OPEC Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OYTEP Ten Year Procurement Program (translated) PKK Kurdistan Workers...and other irregulars, in groups of about a hundred usually led by police, took part in the operation; 700 hostages, including women and children...Party (Partiya Kakeren Kurdistan— PKK ) terrorist organization. Externally, Turkey was surrounded by unstable authoritarian regimes such as Iraq

This booklet introduces the problem of world hunger and provides information, facts, and perspectives about the crisis. Section one presents the reader with the basic facts of the hunger crisis through a self-survey, a statistical study of the developed Oil Producing Export Countries (OPEC), and a one-page indication of what one would have to give…

This report describes a modeling methodology for examining the prospective economic benefits of displacing motor gasoline use by alternative fuels. The approach is based on the Alternative Fuels Trade Model (AFTM). AFTM development was undertaken by the US Department of Energy (DOE) as part of a longer term study of alternative fuels issues. The AFTM is intended to assist with evaluating how alternative fuels may be promoted effectively, and what the consequences of substantial alternative fuels use might be. Such an evaluation of policies and consequences of an alternative fuels program is being undertaken by DOE as required by Section 502(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Interest in alternative fuels is based on the prospective economic, environmental and energy security benefits from the substitution of these fuels for conventional transportation fuels. The transportation sector is heavily dependent on oil. Increased oil use implies increased petroleum imports, with much of the increase coming from OPEC countries. Conversely, displacement of gasoline has the potential to reduce US petroleum imports, thereby reducing reliance on OPEC oil and possibly weakening OPEC`s ability to extract monopoly profits. The magnitude of US petroleum import reduction, the attendant fuel price changes, and the resulting US benefits, depend upon the nature of oil-gas substitution and the supply and demand behavior of other world regions. The methodology applies an integrated model of fuel market interactions to characterize these effects.

DEPENDABILITY. 1975-,905 VI THE OUTLOOK FOR WORLD ENERGY INTERDEPENDENCE ,„ Supply, Demand, OPEC and Prices Energy Interdependence...the outlook of the world energy market is speculated upon in Chapter Vi and the resulting patterns of interdependence are subse...theme of this study is the relationship of Interdepen- dence which characterizes the world energy system. From the standpoint of the international

This paper presents tendencies of the petroleum industry market. It analyses the petroleum demand and supply, the prices elaboration, the petroleum market and the OPEC objective, the third petroleum crisis of the year 2000 and gives some data concerning the petroleum market. (A.L.B.)

This article analyses the responsible for sustaining the rise of petroleum prices which are: the world economic growing; production control by the OPEC; instability and supplying interruption risks; low levels of the private stocks; dollar depreciation; break the myth of the price elevation. The article also inquires on the possibility of a new petroleum price shock.

At its heart, Arab oil policy is inseparable from Arab economic and social policy. This holds whether we are talking about the Arab nations as a group or each separately. The seven Arab nations covered in this report-Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates--participate in several organizations focusing on regional cooperation regarding economic development, social programs, and Islamic unity, as well as organizations concerned with oil policies. This report focuses on the oil-related activities of the countries that may reveal the de facto oil policies of the seven Persian Gulf nations. Nevertheless it should be kept in mind that the decision makers participating in the oil policy organizations are also involved with the collaborative efforts of these other organizations. Oil policies of five of the seven Arab nations are expressed within the forums of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC). Only Oman, among the seven, is not a member of either OAPEC or OPEC; Bahrain is a member of OAPEC but not of OPEC. OPEC and OAPEC provide forums for compromise and cooperation among their members. Nevertheless, each member state maintains its own sovereignty and follows its own policies. Each country deviates from the group prescription from time to time, depending upon individual circumstances.

Since the late 1970s Americans have adopted a more pessimistic outlook of the future than at any time since World War II. Reasons for this include inflation, unemployment, a low rate of productivity, the flow of U.S. funds to OPEC nations, an unfavorable balance of trade, and the unstable international environment. In view of these factors, some…

Intended as a supplement to the units "Oil: Fuel of the Past" and "Coal: Fuel of the Past, Hope of the Future," this 3-4 day unit contains three activities which briefly explain the chronological development of energy resources and the formation and development of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The…

A survey was initiated at the request of the U.S. Office of Education and the Energy Task Force to: (1) measure the increase in energy expenditures since the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74; (2) assess changes in energy consumption over a two-year period; and (3) examine some of the specific conservation practices of higher education institutions.…

This paper examines the causes and effects of the 1973 oil embargo imposed by OPEC. The author notes that since the embargo, little positive action has been taken to reduce American dependence upon a very limited and very expensive energy source. In order to achieve any degree of independence, it will be necessary to repidly expand coal and…

Uses the methodology of critical hermeneutics to analyze Chief Executive Officers' letters to shareholders in the United States petroleum industry during the 1970s and 1980s. Suggests these letters were deployed to produce a certain attitude toward OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) among their readers that deflected attention of…

At its heart, Arab oil policy is inseparable from Arab economic and social policy. This holds whether we are talking about the Arab nations as a group or each separately. The seven Arab nations covered in this report-Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates--participate in several organizations focusing on regional cooperation regarding economic development, social programs, and Islamic unity, as well as organizations concerned with oil policies. This report focuses on the oil-related activities of the countries that may reveal the de facto oil policies of the seven Persian Gulf nations. Nevertheless it should be kept in mind that the decision makers participating in the oil policy organizations are also involved with the collaborative efforts of these other organizations. Oil policies of five of the seven Arab nations are expressed within the forums of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC). Only Oman, among the seven, is not a member of either OAPEC or OPEC; Bahrain is a member of OAPEC but not of OPEC. OPEC and OAPEC provide forums for compromise and cooperation among their members. Nevertheless, each member state maintains its own sovereignty and follows its own policies. Each country deviates from the group prescription from time to time, depending upon individual circumstances.

This paper describes petroleum price instability in connection with politics intrusion into the oil business. The author shows the dominant position of OPEC on petroleum market during the 70s and the 80s, the influence of Iranian revolution, Iran / Iraq war and Kuwait invasion by Iraq on petroleum price evolution. 5 figs.

Indonesia is an oil producing country and is the only East Asian member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Over the years, this endowment of oil resources has been steadily exploited with substantial rents flowing to the government from production and exports of crude oil. The country is also one of the world's largest exporters of another petroleum resource, liqu...

The surface energy exchange of 12m high Scots pine plantation at Hartheim, Germany, was measured with a variety of methods during a 11-day period of fine weather in mid-May 1992. Net radiation and rate of thermal storage were measured with conventional net radiometers, soil heat flux discs and temperature-based storage models. The turbulent fluxes discussed in this report were obtained with an interchanging Bowen ratio energy budget system (BREB, at 14 m), two one-propeller eddy correlation systems (OPEC systems 1 and 2 at 17m), a 1-dimensional sonic eddy correlation system (SEC system 3) at 15 m, all on one “low” tower, and a 3-dimensional sonic eddy correlation system (SEC system 22) at 22 m on the “high” tower that was about 46 m distant. All systems measured sensible and latent heat (H and LE) directly, except for OPEC systems 1 and 2 which estimated LE as a residual term in the surface energy balance. Closure of turbulent fluxes from the two SEC systems was around 80% for daytime and 30% for night, with closure of 1-dimensional SEC system 3 exceeding that of 3-dimensional SEC system 22. The night measurements of turbulent fluxes contained considerable uncertainty, especially with the BREB system where measured gradients often yielded erroneous fluxes due to problems inherent in the method (i.e., computational instability as Bowen's ratio approaches -1). Also, both eddy correlation system designs (OPEC and SEC) appeared to underestimate |H| during stable conditions at night. In addition, both sonic systems (1- and 3-dimensional) underestimated |LE| during stable conditions. The underestimate of |H| at night generated residual estimates of OPEC LE containing a “phantom dew” error that erroneously decreased daily LE totals by about 10 percent. These special night problems are circumvented here by comparing results for daytime periods only, rather than for full days. To summarize, turbulent fluxes on the low tower from OPEC system 2 and the adjacent

Deregulation on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border has made certain aspects of trade agreements largely superfluous in the near term. It is over the longer term that the impact of the NAFTA will become apparent. To grapple with this issue, simulations are attempted of oil and gas trade between the United States and Canada as if the NAFTA had been in place before the first oil price shock of 1973. The simulations suggest substantial additional exports of Canadian oil and gas would have enabled the United States to back out volumes of OPEC oil during the critical years of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This would have served to dampen world oil markets during the years of OPEC ascendancy-not dramatically, but not negligibly either. By promoting closer integration of energy markets, the NAFTA should lead to more cohesive North American responses to any future world oil shocks. 13 refs., 8 tabs.

It is recognized that similarity exists between world economics, crude oil price, production of crude oil by OPEC and non-OPEC countries, importation of oil by USA. environmental problems, of 1973, just before oil crisis, and those of 1986. World economics has been growing rapidly in later half of 1980s, though it is not so rapid as that just before the first oil crisis. Hovering oil price in recent years has been contributing to activate world economics in later half of 1980s, just like as directly before the first oil crisis. By considering such petroleum cycle, it was verified from various view points that petroleum market was entering into new phase of upward swing toward 1990s. 4 figs., 9 tabs.

The restorative potential of green outdoor environments for children in preschool settings was investigated by measuring the attention of children playing in settings with different environmental features. Eleven preschools with outdoor environments typical for the Stockholm area were assessed using the outdoor play environment categories (OPEC) and the fraction of visible sky from play structures (sky view factor), and 198 children, aged 4.5-6.5 years, were rated by the staff for inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive behaviors with the ECADDES tool. Children playing in large and integrated outdoor areas containing large areas of trees, shrubbery and a hilly terrain showed less often behaviors of inattention (pOPEC can be useful when to locate and develop health-promoting land adjacent to preschools.

US vulnerability to energy supplies is reviewed in terms of action taken by the Organizaion of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) during the 1970s and the outlook for supply and price disruptions in the 1980s. The US position is then related to the Mexican petroleum boom and the benefits that increasing exports from a non-OPEC country like Mexico can have on world oil trade. US political and security interests will encourage a rapid increase in Mexican production, and the US will be concerned with how Mexico develops its relationships with the US and with other oil-producing countries. Changing economic and social relationships are inevitable and could lead to serioUS political unrest over questions of equity and immigrations. The difficulty of articulating US security interests without interfering in Mexican domestic affairs will require careful diplomacy.

In this paper, we analyze how oilrig activity in different non-OPEC regions is affected by the crude oil price. We estimate relationships between oilrig activity and crude oil prices using dynamic regression models augmented with latent components capturing trend and seasonality. The results generally show a positive relationship between oilrig activity and the crude oil price, but the strength of the relationship differs across regions. Overall, there seems to be a clear relationship between the oil industry structure in the region and the oilrig activity's reaction to price changes. On average, the long-run price elasticity for oilrig activity in non-OPEC countries is around unity. (author)

The considerable potential of oil and gasproduction in VenezuelaVenezuela is located in the north end of the South American continent. The oil reserve of Venezuelan announced by OPEC is 296.5 billion barrels （about 40.62 billion tons）. Most of the oil reserve locates in Orinoco River area where heavy oil and ultra heavy oil can be explored, are highly viscosity and highly sulfur.

The US-Saudi Arabia partnership is, on the aspect of international relations, the main victim of September 11, 2001 terror events. If it is excessive today to claim that the President Bush government wishes to weaken the Saudi state, the 2002 trends of the US foreign policy have deeply modify the world energy deal to the detriment of OPEC and its main producing country.

Crude oil prices before 1970 were under control by multinational monopolist oil companies; from 1970 to 1986 OPEC administered pricing system determined crude oil prices; and from 1986 to the present, crude oil prices are determined by a market-linked pricing mechanism or demand-to-supply ratio, taking in account a set of many other factors, such as economic, political, financial, technological, meteorological and oil reserves. As in a market-linked pricing mechanism, the main determinant fac...

percent for the decade as a whole.) IAn earlier version of this paper will appear in French translation in the journal Politique Internationale. 2...exports. Hyperinflation also tends to discour - age internal investment, as well as to divert it to rapidly inflating commodities, such as real estate and... Politique Internationale. 2I leave Mexico out of this discussion because of the special role of oil in its successful development record. The major OPEC

This fourth edition of the IEA Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR) confronts an economic landscape unrecognisable from that seen at the time of the release of the summer 2008 edition. Crude prices are now 55% lower as financial and economic meltdown have slashed demand, with worldwide contraction in oil use at levels not seen since the early 1980s. But how long will the downturn last, and what is the likely profile of global and regional demand recovery when economic rebound eventually takes root? Has almost a decade of rising prices and costs changed the demand-side blueprint and forced the world onto a lower oil intensity path for the period through 2014? Equally importantly, the report identifies the impact that weaker demand, low prices and a credit squeeze are having on supply-side investment - in upstream OPEC/non-OPEC supply, biofuels capacity and refining infrastructure alike. The 2009 edition of the MTOMR also delves into the issues of diversifying FSU crude exports, evolving crude and product qualities, the importance of petrochemical markets and perceptions on oil price formation in the down-cycle. Two demand scenarios are presented based on differing economic growth assumptions, with a lower non-OPEC supply scenario also accompanying the lower GDP case. Summary oil balances highlight how OPEC spare capacity could develop during 2008-2014. This year, the MTOMR also consolidates analysis of future crude availability and trade flows, refining capacity and oil products supply implications under one cover. The MTOMR remains required reading for policy makers, market analysts, industry participants and anyone with an interest in oil market trends. It contains detailed statistical appendices and a wealth of insightful graphics. Alongside its monthly sister publication, the Oil Market Report, the MTOMR is a cornerstone of the IEA commitment to enhancing oil market transparency.

The three major international crude oil markets are treated as complex systems and their multifractal properties are explored. The study covers daily prices of Brent crude, OPEC reference basket and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude from January 2, 2003 to January 2, 2014. A multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA) is employed to extract the generalized Hurst exponents in each of the time series. The generalized Hurst exponent is used to measure the degree of multifractality which in turn is used to quantify the efficiency of the three international crude oil markets. To identify whether the source of multifractality is long-range correlations or broad fat-tail distributions, shuffled data and surrogated data corresponding to each of the time series are generated. Shuffled data are obtained by randomizing the order of the price returns data. This will destroy any long-range correlation of the time series. Surrogated data is produced using the Fourier-Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (F-DFA). This is done by randomizing the phases of the price returns data in Fourier space. This will normalize the distribution of the time series. The study found that for the three crude oil markets, there is a strong dependence of the generalized Hurst exponents with respect to the order of fluctuations. This shows that the daily price time series of the markets under study have signs of multifractality. Using the degree of multifractality as a measure of efficiency, the results show that WTI is the most efficient while OPEC is the least efficient market. This implies that OPEC has the highest likelihood to be manipulated among the three markets. This reflects the fact that Brent and WTI is a very competitive market hence, it has a higher level of complexity compared against OPEC, which has a large monopoly power. Comparing with shuffled data and surrogated data, the findings suggest that for all the three crude oil markets, the multifractality is mainly due to long

The efficacy and tolerability of a combination of vincristine, cisplatin, teniposide, and cyclophosphamide (OPEC) in 11 patients (median age, 45 yr) with recurrent and/or metastatic adrenocortical cancer (ACC) (seven functional and four nonfunctional) were evaluated. All patients received this regimen after the failure of streptozocin and o,p'-DDD (SO) combination therapy. The regimen comprised cyclophosphamide, 600 mg/m2, and vincristine, 1.5 mg/m2, maximum dose 2.0 mg (d 1); cisplatin, 100 mg/m2 (d 2) and teniposide, 150 mg/m2 (d 4). Cycles were repeated every 4 wk. One to eight cycles (median, six cycles) of OPEC were administered to each patient. The median duration of treatment was 6 mo. The overall 2-yr survival rate was 82% and the median survival since diagnosis was 44 mo while it was 21 mo since start of OPEC therapy. Responses were obtained in nine patients: partial response in two patients, and stable disease in seven patients. The median duration of response was 6.75 mo. A total of 60 cycles of chemotherapy were given to all patients; grade 1-2 toxicity occurred in 57 cycles, while grade 3 toxicity was observed only in two cycles, according to NCI's Common Toxicity Criteria. We conclude that the OPEC regimen may be considered in recurrent or metastatic ACC as a second-line medical treatment. However, the combination is accompanied by considerable side effects and dose modifications are necessary in order to be able to recommend the treatment. This regimen needs further evaluation compared with SO therapy preferably in a randomized multicenter trial.

This paper describes measurements of the Hartheim forest energy budget for the 157-day period of May 11 Oct. 14, 1992. Data were collected as 30-min means. Energy available to the forest was measured with net radiometers and soil heat flux discs; sensible heat exchange between the canopy and atmosphere was measured with two “One-Propeller Eddy Correlation” (OPEC) systems, and latent energy (evapotranspiration or ET) was determined as a residual in the surface energy balance equation. Net rediation, change in thermal storage, and sensible heat flux were verified by independent measurements during the Hartheim Experiment (HartX, May 11 12), and again during the “HartX2” experiment over 20 days late in the summer (Sep. 10 29). Specifically, sensible heat estimates from the two adjacent OPEC sensor sets were in close agreement throughout the summer, and in excellent agreement with measurements of sonic eddy correlation systems in May and September. The eddy correlation/energy balance technique was observed to overestimate occurrence of dew, leading to an underestimate of daily ET of about 5%. After taking dew into account, estimates of OPEC ET totaled 358 mm over the 5.1-month period, which is in quite good agreement with an ET estimate of 328 mm from a hydrologic water balance. An observed decrease in forest ET in July and August was clearly associated with low rainfall and increased soil water deficit. The OPEC system required only modest technical supervision, and generated a data yield of 99.5% over the period DOY 144 288. The documented verification and precision of this energy budget appears to be unmatched by any other long-term forest study reported to date.

THP-1-derived cell lines were stably transfected with constructs encoding glycophosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored or transmembrane forms of human CD14. CD14 expression was associated with enhanced phagocytosis of serum (heat-inactivated)-opsonized Escherichia coli (opEc). Both the GPI-anchored and transmembrane forms of CD14 supported phagocytosis of opEc equally well. Lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP) played a role in CD14-dependent phagocytosis as evidenced by inhibition of CD14-dependent phagocytosis of opEc with anti-LBP monoclonal antibody (mAb) and by enhanced phagocytosis of E. coli opsonized with purified LBP. CD14-dependent phagocytosis was inhibited by a phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase inhibitor (wortmannin) and a protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor (tyrphostin 23) but not a protein kinase C inhibitor (bisindolyl-maleimide) or a divalent cation chelator (ethylenediaminetetraacetate). Anti-LBP mAb 18G4 and anti-CD14 mAb 18E12 were used to differentiate between the pathways involved in CD14-dependent phagocytosis and CD14-dependent cell activation. F(ab')2 fragments of 18G4, a mAb to LBP that does not block cell activation, inhibited ingestion of opEc by THP1-wtCD14 cells. 18E12 (an anti-CD14 mAb that does not block LPS binding to CD14 but does inhibit CD14-dependent cell activation) did not inhibit phagocytosis of LBP-opEc by THP1-wtCD14 cells. Furthermore, CD14-dependent phagocytosis was not inhibited by anti-CD18 (CR3 and CR4 beta-chain) or anti-Fcgamma receptor mAb.

Full Text Available Iraq is a major oil producer and exporter(the second one after Saudi Arabia, member of OPEC and was able to reform its oil sector and to gradually pass to a market economy system, by restructuring and privatizing its oil production, processing and distribution. Some medium term and long term priorities set for economic development are presented in the article and also investment and business opportunities existing for domestic and foreign investors.

decline.20 Since 2008, improvements in fossil fuel extraction techniques, such as fracking in the United States, have delayed the inevitable and probably...higher US production due to fracking and inaction by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).25 Assuming this relaxation does not... fracking techniques, eventually even the most ingenious extraction techniques will not be enough for supply to keep up with demand, and humans will

The Yom Kippur war in October 1973 resulted in an oil embargo from OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and as a consequence for eleven weekends it was strictly forbidden to drive on Sundays in Denmark –similar measures were taken in western Germany and the Netherlands. The ban...... was in effect from 25 November 1973 and lasted for eleven weekends, to 19 February 1974, although 23 December was the exception to this rule – well it was Christmas, after all....

TREATY OPEC ORGANIZATION OF THE PETROLEUM EXPORTING COUNTRIES PDVSA PETROLEUM OF VENEZUELA xii THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK xiii...hydrocarbon industry became crucial for Chávez’s government. State officials dominated the ranks of the national oil company, PDVSA , specifically the...Iran to join exploration in the Orinoco Belt, a place known for Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude petroleum reserves. PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A

turning to smaller countries such as Dubai , Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and non- OPEC Oman. Buying more than 50 percent of the oil exported by these countries, Japan...general studies in other systems such as wind power and power generation from marine temperature differences. The Sunshine Project is Japan’s main...relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any states, or in any other manner inconsistent

A wide ranging discussion about the factors that have influenced oil and natural gas prices, the differences of the Canadian market from international markets, the differences between eastern and western Canadian markets, and shareholders` perspectives on recent commodity price developments was presented. Developments in the OPEC countries were reviewed, noting that current OPEC production of 25 mmbbls is about 60 per cent higher than it was in 1985. It is expected that OPEC countries will continue to expand capacity to meet expected demand growth and the continuing need created by the UN embargo on Iraqi oil sales. Demand for natural gas is also likely to continue to rise especially in view of the deregulation of the electricity industry where natural gas may well become the favored fuel for incremental thermal generation capacity. Prices of both crude oil and natural gas are expected to hold owing to unusually low storage levels of both fuels. The inadequacy of infrastructure, particularly pipeline capacity as a key factor in the Canadian market was noted, along with the dynamic that will emerge in the next several years that may have potential consequences for Canadian production - namely the reversal of the Sarnia to Montreal pipeline. With regard to shareholders` expectations the main issues are (1) whether international markets reach back to the wellhead, hence the producer`s positioning with respect to transportation capacity and contract portfolios, and (2) whether the proceeds from increased prices are invested in projects that are yielding more than the cost of capital. 28 figs.

Full Text Available Direct comparison of air–sea CO2 fluxes by open-path eddy covariance (OPEC and closed-path eddy covariance (CPEC techniques was carried out over the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Previous studies over oceans have shown that the CO2 flux by OPEC was larger than the bulk CO2 flux using the gas transfer velocity estimated by the mass balance technique, while the CO2 flux by CPEC agreed with the bulk CO2 flux. We investigated a traditional conflict between the CO2 flux by the eddy covariance technique and the bulk CO2 flux, and whether the CO2 fluctuation attenuated using the closed-path analyser can be measured with sufficient time responses to resolve small CO2 flux over oceans. Our results showed that the closed-path analyser using a short sampling tube and a high volume air pump can be used to measure the small CO2 fluctuation over the ocean. Further, the underestimated CO2 flux by CPEC due to the attenuated fluctuation can be corrected by the bandpass covariance method; its contribution was almost identical to that of H2O flux. The CO2 flux by CPEC agreed with the total CO2 flux by OPEC with density correction; however, both of them are one order of magnitude larger than the bulk CO2 flux.

The energy crisis of the 1970s provided an incentive to look for alternative energy sources. At the time, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declared that the era of cheap oil was over. In addition to quadrupling oil prices, OPEC reduced production and placed total embargoes on some countries. With high oil demand and limited supply, lifestyles and habits that were founded on the oil market began to change. The energy crisis was also a catalyst to develop innovative conservation measures. Progressive trendsetters back in 1975 turned to solar and wind energy for their power needs. The author argued that had it not been for the energy crisis, developments such as the Athabasca oil sands, Hydro-Quebec's high-head electric power plants or nuclear power may never have occurred. This article then presented a brief history of the petroleum industry. Drilling technology in 1859 permitted drilling to a level of only 23 metres. In 1928 only 7 companies in the United States controlled the world oil market, notably, Exxon, Texaco, British Petroleum, Shell, Gulf, Standard Oil and Mobil Oil. OPEC was created in 1960, and by 1970 it controlled 40 per cent of the world oil market. According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, 1970 also marked the year when oil production began to decline. This article also summarized offshore operations in Atlantic Canada and the advent of enhanced recovery techniques, including the development of carbon sequestration. 6 figs.

This article concerns the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) crisis and its impact on energy efficiency measures in the US. In 1985, when the OPEC collapsed, the US government had avoided the need to construct 350 gigawatts of new electric capacity. The most successful efficiency improvements, especially in household appliances and equipment, lighting and tightened energy efficiency standards in new buildings, resulted from the OPEC event. The real innovation of that time was the change in profit rules for utilities. This revolution and the way some US utilities view energy have not caught on elsewhere. Despite the initiative toward improving energy efficiency in homes, offices and industries, the change has been slow. Partly to blame are the big development banks, which pointed out that short-term conservation and efficiency measures could save at least 15% of the total energy demand without the need for major investment. The benefits of energy conservation was shown during the oil shock when per capita energy consumption fell by 5% in the member states of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, while the per capita gross domestic product grew by a third. There has been a decrease in energy expenditure worldwide, and the scope for further energy savings is enormous, but governments need to recognize and seize the opportunity.

The bacteria Sphingomonas sp. strain BSN22, isolated from bean fields, degraded octylphenol polyethoxylates (OPEO(n)) to octylphenol (OP) under aerobic conditions. This biodegradation mechanism proceeded by the following two-step degradation process: (1) degradation of OPEO(n) to octylphenol triethoxylate (OPEO(3)), (2) degradation from OPEO(3) to OP via octylphenoxy acetic acid (OPEC(1)). The chemical structure of OPEC(1) was confirmed by analysis using (18)O-labeled water. Quantitative studies revealed that magnesium (Mg(2+)) and calcium (Ca(2+)) ions were essential for the biodegradation of OPEO(n). Furthermore, the rate of biodegradation was especially accelerated by ferric ions (Fe(3+)), and the accumulated amounts of endocrine active chemicals, such as OP, OPEO(1), and OPEC(1), significantly increased to the concentration of 22.8, 221.7, and 961.1 microM in the presence of 37.0 microM Fe(3+), respectively. This suggests that environmental elements significantly influence the resultant ecotoxicity as well as the rate of their biodegradation in the environment. This study on the mechanism of OPEO(n) biodegradation may play an important role in understanding and managing environmental safety, including drinking water safety.

A review is presented of the evolution of the international petroleum sector since 1973 with a special emphasis on the interdependence between the economic and political factors that influence it. Two issues are focused on: the effects of the nationalization of oil companies on the sharing of oil rents and on changes in the structure of the oil market; and the determination of oil prices. Definitions are presented of oil rents, and the reasons for OPEC nationalization of oil companies are explored. The effects of nationalization on market structures, expansion of free markets, and vertical integration are discussed. The existence of an oil price floor and the reasons for such a floor are examined. It is shown that nationalization induced an internalization of rents by the producing countries, leading to the emergence of a differential rent supported by the politics of the industrialized countries. Nationalization led to the breakup of systems of vertical and horizontal integration, with replacement by a new dual structure with OPEC controlling the upstream activities of the oil sector and oil companies controlling the downstream ones. Prices move between a floor price set by the costs of substitute deposits in the U.S., while the determination of ceiling levels by OPEC rests on successive fragile compromises. Overall oil is still a strategic product, despite the existence of spot markets, forward trading options, etc. 29 refs.

The circadian clock of man and mammals shows a hierarchic organization. The master clock, located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), controls peripheral oscillators distributed throughout the body. Rhythm generation depends on molecular clockworks based on transcriptional/translational interaction of clock genes. Numerous studies have shown that the clockwork in peripheral oscillators is capable to maintain circadian rhythms for several cycles in vitro, i.e. in the absence of signals from the SCN. The aim of the present study is to analyze the effects of irradiation with X-rays on the clockwork of liver, adrenal and pancreas. To this end organotypic slice cultures of liver (OLSC) and organotypic explant cultures of adrenal glands (OAEC) and pancreas (OPEC) were prepared from transgenic mPer2(luc) mice which express luciferase under the control of the promoter of an important clock gene, Per2, and allow to study the dynamics of the molecular clockwork by bioluminometry. The preparations were cultured in a membrane-based liquid-air interface culturing system and irradiated with X-rays at doses of 10 Gy and 50 Gy or left untreated. Bioluminometric real-time recordings show a stable oscillation of all OLSC, OAEC and OPEC for up to 12 days in vitro. Oscillations persist after irradiation with X-rays. However, a dose of 50 Gy caused a phase advance in the rhythm of the OLSC by 5 h, in the OPEC by 7 h and in the OAEC by 6 h. Our study shows that X-rays affect the molecular clockwork in liver, pancreas and adrenal leading to phase advances. Our results confirm and extend previous studies showing a phase-advancing effect of X-rays at the level of the whole animal and single cells.

Four tables illustrate three dollar investment tools and compare the rate of return on a US dollar in order to determine which is the preferred investment for OPEC surplus funds. A low rate of return indicates that it is more logical to plan oil production and pace it to meet present and future development needs rather than convert a valued resource to paper assets. The stored value of special drawing rights (SDRs) is a more-stable instrument against national currencies than dollar investments. International challenges to SDRs may preclude this, however. (DCK)

Data are presented under the following headings: world crude oil production, OPEC crude oil productive capacity; world crude oil and refined product inventory levels; and oil consumption in the OECD countries. The USSR crude oil production and exports; free world and US nuclear electricity generation; US domestic oil supply; US gross imports of crude oil and products; landed cost of Saudi crude, current and 1974 dollars; US coal trade; US natural gas trade; summary of US merchandise trade; and energy/GNP ratio data are also included.

The Yom Kippur war in October 1973 resulted in an oil embargo from OPEC – for eleven weekends it was strictly forbidden to drive on Sundays in Denmark. This was basically a psychological or symbolic measure to heighten the public awareness of the fundamental dependency on oil in Denmark. The proh...... much less social harm than a rationing of gasoline or other harsh measures to everyday transportation. This event marks the crucial turning point of the mediation and consumption junction from leisure to everyday automobilism....

The Soviet Union produces 20% of world energy but since 1988 this is in decline. Awakening consumerism and a sea-change in the structure of foreign trade and internal investment are placing this key industry into unprecedented uncertainty. The difference between success and failure goes beyond the 1988 peak of six million barrels daily of exports in oil equivalent. The article quantifies the key areas of energy uncertainty as equal in volume to total OPEC output and sees the long-term changes of success more than ever dependent on coordinated planning and investment as well as on market reality. (Author).

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to examine whether the First Law of Petropolitics denominated by Friedman in 2006 is valid for OPEC countries. To do this, this paper analyses the relationship between political risk and oil supply by applying the asymmetric panel causality test suggested by Hatemi-J (2011 to these countries for the period 1984-2014. The results show that the First Law of Petropolitics is valid for Angola, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, given that positive oil supply shocks significantly lead to negative political stability shocks, and negative oil supply shocks significantly lead to positive shocks in political stability.

Full Text Available Problem statement: This research tested the viability of Geometric Brownian Motion as a
stochastic model of oil prices. Approach: Using autoregressions and unit root tests, we determined
that oil prices tend not to exhibit the Markov Property and thus GBM may be a problematic model.
Results: Instead, oil prices seem to be mean reverting over the long run, possibly following an
Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Conclusion/Recommendations: To determine whether or not OPEC
was the cause of mean reversion, we repeated the tests after controlling for quotas, only to find the
same results did not apply over the short run.

For the industrialized countries, the rapid economic growth presents constraints stemming from public concern over questions of environment and safety. In response to these changes the petroleum industry and the petrochemistry are confronted to a double challenge which is discussed in this document: from the technical point of view, the carbon emissions decrease and the refining; from an economic point of view, the Kyoto negotiation, the geo-political stakes, the OPEC the United States and the European positions and the benefit of allowance stemming from the expensive energy prices. (A.L.B.)

The author takes stock on the dynamic of the oil system. He shows how the economic laws can be applied to the petroleum market and analyzes the effects of the prices evolution. The creeping oil shock of 2003-2004 has proven less disruptive than one may have anticipated. Commodity cycles on the one hand the shaky management of marginal supply by OPEC on the other hand, are very likely to create ample prices swings with little relations, if any, to the actual scarcity-or lack thereof-of oil resources. (A.L.B.)

Full Text Available In paper I describe mainly high price of oil, which has influence on many circumstances. The important effect on growing up the price of oil has situation in Mid-east, and everyday rising consumption of oil in China. Meaningful position have USA, which using 45% of word energy. The problem is particularly in daily mining of lode. In next part i describing aspect of this situation on stock-exchange, mainly behaviour of speculators, and OPEC, and also presure on inflation in Euro-zone. In the last chapter I discuss about reaction of the big world oil concern like CONOCO, SHELL, BP, OMV and MOL.

@@ Venezuela is the 5th biggest oil export country in the world, and a member of OPEC. With rich reserves of crude oil, its average daily oil output reached 3.1 million barrels in 2004. Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the biggest oil company in South America, launched its China representative office in Beijing on 22 Aug. Ma Fucai, Vice Director of the State Energy Leading Group Office, and Rafael Ramrez,Minister of the Energy and Oil Ministry of Republic of Venezuela, attended the opening ceremony.

Full Text Available Internet of Things (IoT seems a viable way to enable the Smart Cities of the future. iNUIT (Internet of Things for Urban Innovation is a multi-year research program that aims to create an ecosystem that exploits the variety of data coming from multiple sensors and connected objects installed on the scale of a city, in order to meet specific needs in terms of development of new services (physical security, resource management, etc.. Among the multiple research activities within iNUIT, we present two projects: SmartCrowd and OpEc. SmartCrowd aims at monitoring the crowd’s movement during large events. It focuses on real-time tracking using sensors available in smartphones and on the use of a crowd simulator to detect possible dangerous scenarios. A proof-of-concept of the application has been tested at the Paléo Festival (Switzerland showing the feasibility of the approach. OpEc (Optimisation de l’Eclairage public aims at using IoT to implement dynamic street light management and control with the goal of reducing street light energy consumption while guaranteeing the same level of security of traditional illumination. The system has been tested during two months in a street in St-Imier (Switzerland without interruption, validating its stability and resulting in an overall energy saving of about 56%.

The purpose of this supporting analysis is to provide a foundation for developing a model, an international or multinational institution capable of accomodating the back end of the fuel cycle, while meeting US nonproliferation goals. The analysis is based on a review of selected, defunct and extant institutions which, although not necessarily concerned with nonproliferation, have faced a trade-off between acceptability and effectiveness in meeting their objectives. Discussion of the various institutions is divided into three categories: international organizations, multinational consortia, and cartels or producer associations. Examples of international organizations include the International Seabed Authority, Intelsat, the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The International Seabed Authority is discussed. Multinational consortia are organizations that have been developed primarily to meet common commercial objectives. Membership includes at least three member nations. Examples include the Scandinavian Airline System (SAS), URENCO, Unilever, Royal Dutch Shell, Eurochemic, Eurodif, Euratom, European Coal and Steel Community, and Serena. Cartels or producer associations are multinational agreements that restrict market forces; viz, production, market share, customers or prices. Examples include the Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries (CIPEC), the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the Fifth International Tin Agreement (ITA), as well as agreements governing diamonds and uranium, bauxite and coffee. OPEC, CIPEC and ITA are discussed.

Full Text Available Oil (called by some black gold has not always been as coveted and used, but only in the last hundred years has established itself as a highly sought after as an indispensable proper functioning of modern economic activity that an important factor in international politics. International oil regime has changed in the last decades. In 1960, oil regime was a private oligopol which had links with governments main consuming countries. By then the price of a barrel of oil was two U.S. dollars and seven major transnational oil companies decided the amount of oil that will be produced. Meanwhile the world region with the largest oil exports were more strongly expressed nationalism and decolonization. Result, it was so in the late 60s in the region occur independent states. They have created an organization aim of this resource to their advantage - OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Thus since 1973 there have been changes in the international regime governing oil field, namely producing countries were fixed production rate and price. After this time the oil weapon has become increasingly important in the management of international relations. Oil influenced the great powers to Middle East conflicts that occurred in the last century, but their attitude about the emergence of new sources of oil outside OPEC. In the late 90's, Russia has become a major supplier of oil to the West.

The aim of this work was to examine how a pre-freezing treatment with cholesterol-loaded cyclodextrins (CLC) affects boar sperm longevity, capacitation dynamics, ability to bind to a porcine telomerase-immortalised oviductal epithelial cell line (TERT-OPEC) in vitro and DNA integrity dynamics after freeze-thawing. Although the samples treated with CLC exhibited lower sperm quality than the control samples (P0.05) after long-term incubation (26h at 37 or 16°C). Additionally, the CLC-treated spermatozoa underwent similar capacitation and DNA fragmentation dynamics as the control spermatozoa (P>0.05). However, CLC-treated spermatozoa were better able to bind to TERT-OPEC in vitro (POPEC in vitro, which could have an effect on the establishment of the sperm reservoir in the ampullary--isthmic junction in vivo. Additionally, frozen-thawed spermatozoa can be stored at 16°C for at least 6h without a significant observable decline in sperm quality, which could be beneficial for the transport of thawed diluted doses of spermatozoa from the laboratory to the farm.

Pseudomonas sp. TX1, is able to use octylphenol polyethoxylates (OPEO(n), or Triton X-100; average n = 9.5) as a sole carbon source. It can grow on 0.05-20% of OPEO(n) with a specific growth rate of 0.34-0.44 h(-1). High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer analysis of OPEO(n) degraded metabolites revealed that strain TX1 was able to shorten the ethoxylate chain and produce octylphenol (OP). Furthermore, formation of the short carboxylate metabolites, such as carboxyoctylphenol polyethoxylates (COPEO(n), n = 2, 3) and carboxyoctylphenol polyethoxycarboxylates (COPEC(n), n = 2, 3) began at the log stage, while octylphenol polyethoxycarboxylates (OPEC(n), n = 1-3) was formed at the stationary phase. All the short-ethoxylated metabolites, OPEO(n), OPEC(n), COPEO(n), and COPEC(n), accumulated when the cells were in the stationary phase. This study is the first to demonstrate the formation of COPEO(n) and COPEC(n) from OPEO(n) by an aerobic bacterium.

Valencia pectinmethylesterase (PME) fractions, B-PME, containing 36 and 13 kDa protein bands and U-PME, containing a 36 and 27 kDa protein bands, were used to de-esterify original pectin (O-Pec) from 73% degree of esterification (%DE) to 63% (B-Pec) and 61% DE (U-Pec), respectively. Most O-Pec eluted from ion exchange chromatography at low salt concentration and a smaller component eluted at higher ionic strength. B-Pec and U-Pec eluted as one broad peak at higher ionic strength. PME modification did not change molecular weight: O-pectin (134,000 g/mol), U-Pec (133,850 g/mol), and B-Pec (132,250 g/mol). The NMR signal of GG and GGG increased after modification, whereas the signal of EE and EEE decreased. The negative zeta-potential increased with pH for all pectins. U-PME and B-PME created differently modified pectins that vary in degree and length of multiple attacks and fraction of the pectin population that was modified.

Uranium exploration once again is in a ''boom'' cycle. The energy needs of the OPEC and non-OPEC countries alike have created a demand for uranium which appears certain to increase in future years. In turn, this demand has stimulated a dramatic rise in both the price of uranium and the exploration activity necessary to discover new reserves. One immediate reaction to the sudden increase in uranium exploration activity has been the evaluation of old exploration methods and equipment. This paper briefly reviews some of the traditional equipment and techniques which currently are being refined and updated. Undoubtedly this equipment, complemented with good exploration planning and judgment, will continue to be relied upon for many years and will lead to the discovery of many new deposits. The paper also covers in greater detail some of the newer, less conventional techniques and equipment now being introduced for uranium exploration. These new methods may be expected to keep this country in the forefront among the uranium producers of the world.

The World Energy Project System (WEPS) is an accounting framework that incorporates projects from independently documented models and assumptions about the future energy intensity of economic activity (ratios of total energy consumption divided by gross domestic product) and about the rate of incremental energy requirements met by hydropower, geothermal, coal, and natural gas to produce projections of world energy consumption published annually by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in the International Energy Outlook (IEO) (Figure 1). Two independently documented models presented in Figure 1, the Oil Market Simulation (OMS) model and the World Integrated Nuclear Evaluation System (WINES) provide projections of oil and nuclear power consumption published in the IEO. Output from a third independently documented model, and the International Coal Trade Model (ICTM), is not published in the IEO but is used in WEPS as a supply check on projections of world coal consumption produced by WEPS and published in the IEO. A WEPS model of natural gas production documented in this report provides the same type of implicit supply check on the WEPS projections of world natural gas consumption published in the IEO. Two additional models are included in Figure 1, the OPEC Capacity model and the Non-OPEC Oil Production model. These WEPS models provide inputs to the OMS model and are documented in this report.

Country Analysis Briefs: 1994 is a compilation of country profiles prepared by the Energy Markets and Contingency Information Division (EMCID) of the Office of Energy Markets and End Use. EMCID maintains Country Analysis Briefs (CABs) for specific countries or geographical areas that are important to world energy markets. As a general rule, CABs are prepared for all members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), major non-OPEC oil producers (i.e., the North Sea, Russia), major energy transit areas (i.e., Ukraine), and other areas of current interest to energy analysts and policy makers. As of January 1995, EMCID maintained over 40 CABs, updated on an annual schedule and subject to revision as events warrant. This report includes 25 CABs updated during 1994. All CABs contain a profile section, a map showing the country`s location, and a narrative section. The profile section includes outlines of the country`s economy, energy sector, and environment. The narrative provides further information and discussion of these topics. Some CABs also include a detailed map displaying locations of major oil and gas fields, pipelines, ports, etc. These maps were created as a result of special individual requests and so are not typically a standard feature of the CABs. They are presented here wherever available as a supplement to the information contained in the CABs.

Beginning in 2004, the price of crude oil fluctuates rapidly over a wide range. Large and rapid price increases have recessionary consequences and dampen long-term infrastructural investment. I investigate whether price changes are driven by market fundamentals or speculation. With regard to market fundamentals, I revisit econometric evidence for the importance of demand shocks, as proxied by dry maritime cargo rates, on oil prices. When I eliminate transportation costs from both sides of the equation, disaggregate OPEC and non-OPEC production, and allow for more than one cointegrating relation, I find that previous specifications are inconsistent with arguments that demand shocks play an important role. Instead, results confirm the importance of OPEC supply shocks. I investigate two channels by which speculation may affect oil prices; the direct effect of trader behavior and changes in oil from a commodity to a financial asset. With regard to trader behavior, I find evidence that trader positions are required to explain the spread between spot and futures prices of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The inclusion of trader positions clarifies the process of equilibrium error correction, such that there is bidirectional causality between prices and trader positions. This creates the possibility of speculative bubbles. With regard to oil as a commodity and/or financial asset, I use a Kalman Filter model to estimate the time-varying partial correlation between returns to investments in equity and oil markets. This correlation changes from negative to positive at the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. The low interest rates used to rescue the economy depress convenience yields, which reduces the benefits of holding oil as a commodity. Instead, oil becomes a financial asset (on net) as the oil market changed from contango to backwardation. Contradicting simple political narratives, my research suggests that both market fundamentals and speculation drive

The partial monopolization of the world oil market by the OPEC cartel has produced significant economic costs to the economies of the world. This paper reports estimates of the costs of monopolization of oil to the US over the period 1972--1991. Two fundamental assumptions of the analysis are, (1) that OPEC has acted as a monopoly, albeit with limited control, knowledge, and ability to act and, (2) that the US and other consuming nations could, through collective (social) action affect the cartel's ability to act as a monopoly. We measure total costs by comparing actual costs for the 1972--1991 period to a hypothetical more competitive'' world oil market scenario. By measuring past costs we avoid the enormous uncertainties about the future course of the world oil market and leave to the reader's judgment the issue of how much the future will be like the past. We note that total cost numbers cannot be used to determine the value of reducing US oil use by one barrel. They are useful for describing the overall size of the petroleum problem and are one important factor in deciding how much effort should be devoted to solving it. Monopoly pricing of oil transfers wealth from US oil consumers to foreign oil producers and, by increasing theeconomic scarcity of oil, reduces the economy's potential to produce. The actions of the OPEC cartel have also produced oil price shocks, both upward and downward, that generate additional costs because of the economy's inherent inability to adjust quickly to a large change in energy prices. Estimated total costs to the United States from these three sources for the 1972--1991 period are put at $4.1 trillion in 1990$($1.2 T wealth transfer, $0.8 T macroeconomic adjustment costs, $2.1 T potential GNP losses). The cost of the US's primary oil supply contingency program is small ($10 B) by comparison.

A relatively minor oil exporter on Middle Eastern terms, Syria is a member of OPEC and one of the first Arab states to take control of its hydrocarbon resources from foreign domination. After a period of decline, a major discovery is opening new perspectives of Syria's future. The author describes Syria's history since it emerged from the Ottoman Empire and a period of French domination into a period of industrialization and economic development. Oil is the largest single item in the balance of payments and the leading provider of revenues for investment by the government. Since the first discoveries in the 1950s, a number of fields have become productive. The configuration of refineries makes it necessary to export crude oil and import light crude from the new discoveries, making crude oil and petroleum products the largest negative items on the balance of payments. 1 figure.

This paper offers a North American perspective on the possible reaction of the general public to regulatory instruments addressing energy consumption, and by implication, carbon emissions. Its purpose is to reflect on some of the lessons learnt from research on consumer behaviour undertaken by the author and colleagues in the wake of the oil shortages of 1973 (OPEC embargo) and 1979 (interruption of Iranian production). The paper does not, therefore, provide an extensive review of related literature. It first outlines very briefly the policy context of the past 30 years and the classes of transport energy demand restraint policies of the 1970s and 1980s. It then describes some key lessons from our research during those two decades and concludes with some speculation on their relevance to demand-side management that is motivated by concerns over greenhouse gas emissions.

Full Text Available Nigeria ranks high among the community of oil producers both in the world. It is, therefore, paradoxical that Nigeria, with such profile in Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC statistics finds it difficult to optimize its supply distribution while spending so much money on transportation and distribution. This paper thus reviews the petroleum product supply and distribution systems in the country. Thus, we develop a single period, single product deterministic mathematical model to effectively distribute the product to the end user through the most effective channel to the interest of the economy of the country. In our model, we first consider a perfect condition in the petroleum industry irrespective of the production crises and conflicts like pipeline vandalism, communal instability. We then consider different scnearios that presumes several breakdown cases in pipeline connection to anaylze the survivability of the network of petroleum distribution.

The global energy system faces sweeping changes in the next few decades, with potentially critical implications for the global economy and the global environment. It is important that global institutions have the tools necessary to predict, analyze and plan for such massive change. This report summarizes the proceedings of an international workshop concerning methods of forecasting, analyzing, and planning for global energy transitions and their economic and environmental consequences. A specific case, it focused on the transition from conventional to unconventional oil and other energy sources likely to result from a peak in non-OPEC and/or global production of conventional oil. Leading energy models from around the world in government, academia and the private sector met, reviewed the state-of-the-art of global energy modeling and evaluated its ability to analyze and predict large-scale energy transitions.

Esso Standard made the first Libyan oil discovery in the western Ghadames basin in 1957. The Atshan-2 well tested oil from Devonian sandstones, and the play was a continuation of the Paleozoic trend found productive in the neighboring Edjeleh region of eastern Algeria. Exploration in the Sirte basin began in earnest in 1958. Within the next 10 years, 16 major oil fields had been discovered, each with recoverable reserves greater than 500 million bbl of oil. Libya currently produces under OPEC quota approximately 1.4 million b/d of oil, with discovered in-place reserves of 130 billion bbl of oil. The paper describes the structural framework, sedimentary basins of Libya, the Sirte basin, petroleum geology, play types, source rocks, generation and migration of hydrocarbons, oil reserves, potential, and acreage availability.

In the Seventies, the economic growth rates of the petroleum-exporting countries were impressive. The many thousand millions of petro-dollars seemed to be the key to rapid development. Today, however, 15 years after the first petroleum price explosion, nearly all of these countries are faced with a serious economic crisis. This is the background against which this book reviews the history of Libya, a member of the OPEC, between 1969 and 1988. The author analyzes the strategies of development planning, their ideological background, and the actual developments. He attempts to define the past and present influence of sociocultural factors and of the personal goals in power politics of Libya's revolutionary leader Qaddafi. An attempt is made to point out the remaining perspectives of the national path of development that used to be so successful. (orig.).

Estimated future energy cost savings associated with the development of cost-competitive solar thermal technologies (STT) are discussed. Analysis is restricted to STT in electric applications for 16 high-insolation/high-energy-price states. The fuel price scenarios and three 1990 STT system costs are considered, reflecting uncertainty over future fuel prices and STT cost projections. STT R&D is found to be unacceptably risky for private industry in the absence of federal support. Energy cost savings were projected to range from $0 to $10 billion (1990 values in 1981 dollars), dependng on the system cost and fuel price scenario. Normal R&D investment risks are accentuated because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel can artificially manipulate oil prices and undercut growth of alternative energy sources. Federal participation in STT R&D to help capture the potential benefits of developing cost-competitive STT was found to be in the national interest.

Two recent trends have rekindled the debate concerning the place and strategy of Russia on the world oil scene. The first is the development of its oil production and the second is the gradual resumption of control of the country's oil policy by President Vladimir Putin's government. Will Russia be a key variable in world energy balances and could the nation, as some suggest and even desire, become an alternative supply to OPEC and/or challenge Saudi Arabia's position? If so, is that what Russia actually wants? In this study, we attempt to answer some of these important questions by assessing and comparing the capabilities of the producing countries, while studying Russia's aims and objectives for the petroleum sector in the future, when demand for energy supplies is forecast to rise considerably. (author)

By applying two nonlinear Granger causality testing methods and rolling window strategy to explore the relationship between speculative activities and crude oil prices, the unidirectional Granger causality from speculative activities to returns of crude oil prices during the high price phase is discovered. It is proved that speculative activities did contribute to high crude oil prices after the Asian financial crisis and OPEC's output cut in 1998. The unidirectional Granger causality from returns of crude oil prices to speculative activities is significant in general. But after 2000, with the sharp rise in crude oil prices, this unidirectional Granger causality became a complex nonlinear relationship, which cannot be detected by any linear Granger causality test.

A special report on the achievements of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. credits the merger of the Nigerian National Oil Corp. and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources as a step which revolutionized the industry has had a positive impact on the economy. A national corporation with close links to OPEC, it was charged with all aspects, from exploring to marketing, of petroleum development. The author describes activities, including joint ventures, which have led to new production and refining facilities and the diversification of the industry into petrochemicals. The impact on end-use applications will be to produce consumer items and improve the balance of trade. Government regulation includes inspections and oversight of performance of all operations, including environmental standards.

Along with the oil price, concerns about the security of energy supply have soared once again in recent years.Yet, more than 30 years after the OPEC oil embargo in 1973, energy security still remains a diffuse concept. This paper conceives a statistical indicator that aims at characterizing the energy supply risk of nations that are heavily dependent on energy imports. Our indicator condenses the bulk of empirical information on the imports of fossil fuels originating from a multitude of export countries as well as data on the indigenous contribution to the domestic energy supply into a single parameter. Applying the proposed concept to empirical energy data on Germany and the U.S. (1980-2004), we find that there is a large gap in the energy supply risks between both countries, with Germany suffering much more from a tensed energy supply situation today than the U.S. (orig.)

How much of the world's oil and energy supply will the non-OPEC less-developed countries (NOLDCs) demand in the next decade. Will their requirements be small and thus fairly insignificant compared with world demand, or large and relatively important. How will world demand be affected by the economic growth of the NOLDCs. In this report, we try to develop some reasonable forecasts of NOLDC energy demands in the next 10 years. Our focus is mainly on the demand for oil, but we also give some attention to the total commercial energy requirements of these countries. We have tried to be explicit about the uncertainties associated with our forecasts, and with the income and price elasticities on which they are based. Finally, we consider the forecasts in terms of their implications for US policies concerning the NOLDCs and suggest areas of future research on NOLDC energy issues.

Developments suggest that, compared to the past, inventory demand will be less influenced by speculation and panic and prices will be less sensitive to uncertainties caused by interruptions in supply. Combined with the hypothesis that OPEC no longer is in a position to exploit supply crises to raise official prices to a new plateau, it may be argued that future price shocks will be more transitory and less dramatic than would be expected on the basis of experience. The author suggests that private and public policymakers would do well to ignore Santayana's dictum that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Too great a devotion to the lessons of the 1970s as far as oil is concerned will prepare us for a skirmish on a battlefield that no longer exists.

Intelligent buildings, historically and technologically, refers to the integration of four distinctive systems: Building Automation Systems (BAS), Telecommunication Systems, Office Automation Systems and Computer Building Management Systems. The increasing sophisticated BAS has become the ''heart and soul'' of modern intelligent buildings. Integrating energy supply and demand elements - often known as Demand-Side Management (DSM) - has became an important energy efficiency policy concept. Nowadays, European countries have diversified their power supplies, reducing the dependence on OPEC, and developing a broader mix of energy sources maximizing the use of renewable energy domestic sources. In this way it makes sense to include a fifth system into the intelligent building group: Energy Production System Management (EPSM). This paper presents a Building Automation System where the Demand-Side Management is fully integrated with the building's Energy Production System, which incorporates a complete set of renewable energy production and storage systems. (author)

Before the gulf war during 1990/1991, the Iraq petroleum production was 3.14 millions of barrels by day and its production capacity 3.5 millions of barrels by day. Exports were 2.78 millions barrels by day. Because of destruction, capacity decreased. But, with re-building, capacity increased until 2.6 Mb/day and exports until 3.5 Mb/day. New reserves were explored and 35 deposits were discovered. Iraq reserves represent 14% of OPEC reserves and 11% of world reserves. Only 15 deposits among 73 petroleum deposits are actually operating. It is envisaged to negotiate with foreign societies to share production after embargo will be removed.

Estimated future energy cost savings associated with the development of cost-competitive solar thermal technologies (STT) are discussed. Analysis is restricted to STT in electric applications for 16 high-insolation/high-energy-price states. The fuel price scenarios and three 1990 STT system costs are considered, reflecting uncertainty over future fuel prices and STT cost projections. STT R&D is found to be unacceptably risky for private industry in the absence of federal support. Energy cost savings were projected to range from $0 to $10 billion (1990 values in 1981 dollars), dependng on the system cost and fuel price scenario. Normal R&D investment risks are accentuated because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel can artificially manipulate oil prices and undercut growth of alternative energy sources. Federal participation in STT R&D to help capture the potential benefits of developing cost-competitive STT was found to be in the national interest.

The masses of observed hadrons are fitted according to the kinematic predictions of Conformal Relativity. The hypothesis gives a remarkably good fit. The isospin SU(2) gauge invariant Lagrangian L(,(pi)NN)(x,(lamda)) is used in the calculation of d(sigma)/d(OMEGA) to 2nd-order Feynman graphs for simplified models of (pi)N(--->)(pi)N. The resulting infinite mass sums over the nucleon (Conformal) families are done via the Generalized-Sommerfeld-Watson Transform Theorem. Even though the models are too simple to be realistic, they indicate that if (DELTA)-internal lines were to be included, 2nd-order Feynman graphs may reproduce the experimental data qualitatively. The energy -dependence of the propagator and couplings in Conformal QFT is different from that of ordinary QFT. Suggestions for further work are made in the areas of ultra-violet divergences and OPEC calculations.

This research assesses the dynamic structure of the energy sector of the aggregate economy in the context of nonlinear mechanisms. Earlier studies have focused mainly on the price of the energy products when detecting nonlinearities in time series data of the energy market, and there is little mention of the production side of the market. Moreover, there is a lack of exploration about the implication of high dimensionality and time aggregation when analyzing the market's fundamentals. This research will address these gaps by including the quantity side of the market in addition to the price and by systematically incorporating various frequencies for sample sizes in three essays. The goal of this research is to provide an inclusive and exhaustive examination of the dynamics in the energy markets. The first essay begins with the application of statistical techniques, and it incorporates the most well-known univariate tests for nonlinearity with distinct power functions over alternatives and tests different null hypotheses. It utilizes the daily spot price observations on five major products in the energy market. The results suggest that the time series daily spot prices of the energy products are highly nonlinear in their nature. They demonstrate apparent evidence of general nonlinear serial dependence in each individual series, as well as nonlinearity in the first, second, and third moments of the series. The second essay examines the underlying mechanism of crude oil production and identifies the nonlinear structure of the production market by utilizing various monthly time series observations of crude oil production: the U.S. field, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), non-OPEC, and the world production of crude oil. The finding implies that the time series data of the U.S. field, OPEC, and the world production of crude oil exhibit deep nonlinearity in their structure and are generated by nonlinear mechanisms. However, the dynamics of the non-OPEC

Full Text Available This article aims to qualify the different analyses and currents of opinion that are circulating with respect to Central Asia’s capacity to become one of the main exporters of hydrocarbons in the next decade. For this, it first examines whether or not, in quantitativeterms, the hydrocarbon-rich territories of Central Asia can become one of the main suppliers on a world scale; secondly, it explains why the countries of Central Asia will play a necessarily different role on the international energy scene than that played by the OPEC countries; and, finally, it indicates what the relevance of this area could be in the organisation (structure of the contemporary international energy scene. In this sense, it discusses not producing countries, but rather countries of passage.

Full Text Available The aim of this research is to compose a new rating methodology and provide credit notches to 23 countries which of 13 are developed and 10 are emerging. There are various literature that explains the determinants of credit ratings. Following the literature, we select 11 variables for our model which of 5 are eliminated by the factor analysis. We use specific dummies to investigate the structural breaks in time and cross section such as pre crises, post crises, BRIC membership, EU membership, OPEC membership, shipbuilder country and platinum reserved country. Then we run an ordered probit model and give credit notches to the countries. We use FITCH ratings as benchmark. Thus, at the end we compare the notches of FITCH with the ones we derive out of our estimated model.

Full Text Available The article discusses the features of Russia’s strategy for the EU energy market, cooperation with the countries of the OPEC, to avoid further declines in oil prices and relations with the EU in connection with the operation of the «Third energy package».It presents a forecast of energy consumption, the strategy of relations between the EU and Russia in the energy sphere and has the scientific novelty.The paper is exploratory in nature, expressed in the fact that in-depth studied the structure of energy consumption in the EU and possible transition to new ways of «green energy» and the EU strategy for attracting new energy suppliers.

The clinical profile and outcome of neuroblastoma in 103 children, older than one-year is presented. 74 had Stage IV, 27 Stage III and one patient each had Stage I or II disease. Treatment included chemotherapy followed by surgical resection/debulking. Radiotherapy was administered to those with residual tumor. Chemotherapy consisted of OPEC (vincristine, cyclophosphamide, cisplatin and etoposide). The caretakers of 54 (52.4%) children either did not opt for or defaulted therapy, whilst 3 patients died before chemotherapy could be initiated. Of the remaining 46 patients, the tumor progressed during therapy in 19 (41.3%). Relapse of disease was documented in 22 (47.8%) cases. Merely 4 (8.7%) children are disease free for a period of 16.5+/-6.7 months. Majority of children presented with advanced disease and the outcome was dismal with conventional non-myloablative chemotherapy.

There is an urgent need to examine the role that coal might play in meeting world energy needs during the next 20 years. Oil from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) can no longer be relied upon to provide expanding supplies of energy, even with rapidly rising prices. Neither can nuclear energy be planned on for rapid expansion worldwide until present uncertainties about it are resolved. Yet, the world`s energy needs will continue to grow, even with vigorous energy conservation programs and with optimistic rates of expansion in the use of solar energy. Coal already supplies 25% of the world`s energy, its reserves are vast, and it is relatively inexpensive. This study, with the aid of reports from the World Coal Study (WOCOL) examines the needs for coal on a global scale, its availability past and present, and its future prospects.

Full Text Available The international crude oil prices started the year 2014 within parameters comparable to those of the precedent year: WTI (USA recorded 92 $/barrel, on the American spot market, considered a minimum value for the last 5 weeks, while Brent (Great Britain had a more stable evolution, on the spot Rotterdam market, staying around a value of 107,50 $/barrel. Despite analysts’ forecasts, which during the last 3 years staked on a lower oil price, as a consequence of the spectacular increase in non-OPEC oil production, namely of shale oil, the international oil price, namely that of Brent, closed each of the last 3 years around the same level, of 108 $/barrel. As for 2014, the great majority of oil analysts estimates again a decline of oil prices, as a result of a significant rise of oil offer globally, which will greatly surpass the demand rise.

The value of energy trades can change over time with market conditions and underlying price variables. The rise of competition and deregulation in energy markets has led to relatively free energy markets that are characterized by high price shifts. Within oil markets the volatile oil price environment after OPEC agreements in the 1970s requires a risk quantification. ''Value-at-risk'' has become an essential tool for this end when quantifying market risk. There are various methods for calculating value-at-risk. The methods we introduced in this paper are Historical Simulation ARMA Forecasting and Variance-Covariance based on GARCH modeling approaches. The results show that among various approaches the HSAF methodology presents more efficient results, so that if the level of confidence is 99%, the value-at-risk calculated through HSAF methodology is greater than actual price changes in almost 97.6 percent of the forecasting period. (author)

The value of energy trades can change over time with market conditions and underlying price variables. The rise of competition and deregulation in energy markets has led to relatively free energy markets that are characterized by high price shifts. Within oil markets the volatile oil price environment after OPEC agreements in the 1970s requires a risk quantification.' Value-at-risk' has become an essential tool for this end when quantifying market risk. There are various methods for calculating value-at-risk. The methods we introduced in this paper are Historical Simulation ARMA Forecasting and Variance-Covariance based on GARCH modeling approaches. The results show that among various approaches the HSAF methodology presents more efficient results, so that if the level of confidence is 99%, the value-at-risk calculated through HSAF methodology is greater than actual price changes in almost 97.6 percent of the forecasting period.

The author, a former financial analyst with the treasury department of Iran, provides an analysis of the origin of the oil crisis of 1973 and reviews various alternate theories put forward to explain it. Seeing the origin of the crisis in terms of competition rather than monopoly, Bina demonstrates that with the internationalization of capital in the oil industry, a new regulating value emerged from the cost of production of relatively unproductive and declining fields in the US, and that the growing gap between this and the individual values produced in other oil regions, such as the Middle East, set the stage for the restructuring of the entire industry - leading to an unprecedented price increase. Thus, the establishment of a new, higher level of value, oil rent, market and 'posted' prices was the outcome of objective developments rather than the result of arbitrary decisions on the part of cartels like OPEC.

Two main forces will shape the oil market during the next 3 years. The pace of worldwide economic growth will determine demand growth. Although energy use efficiency has improved, especially in the industrialized world, demand for energy and oil products remains chiefly a function of economic activity. And producing nation politics will have much to say about supply. A crucial and unpredictable variable is when Iraq, now subject to a United Nations trade embargo, resumes exports at significant rates. Demand growth will exceed production increases outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which means an ever-increasing role for the exporters' group. The paper discusses the demand outlook, economic projections, energy intensity, regional energy mixes, world energy mix, petroleum demand, petroleum product demand, supply questions, non-OPEC production, reserves and output capacity, production gains, industry operations (drilling, stocks, refining), prices, price forecasts, and the role of taxes.

Since June 2014, international oil price has emerged continuous fall. But Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members change their former pracitce and insist on no cut. Saudi Arabia’s act will probably change the setup of current oil market, suppress the development pace oF shale oil and other alternate energy source industries and lead the globe into low oil price itmes.%2014年6月以来，国际原油从价格持续下跌，沙特及其他欧佩克成员国却一改以往做法，坚持不减产，沙特此举将可能改变现今石油市场的格局，压制页岩油以及其他替代能源产业的发展步伐，将全球带入低油价时代。

Recent technological advances in processes for converting natural gas into liquid fuels, combined with a growing need for cleaner, low-sulfur distillate fuel to mitigate the environmental impacts of diesel engines have raised the possibility of a substantial global gas-to-liquids (G-T-L) industry. This report examines the implications of G-T-L supply for U.S. energy security and the environment. It appears that a G-T-L industry would increase competitiveness in world liquid fuels markets, even if OPEC states are major producers of G-T-L's. Cleaner G-T-L distillates would help reduce air pollution from diesel engines. Implications for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could be positive or negative, depending on the sources of natural gas, their alternative uses, and the degree of sequestration that can be achieved for CO{sub 2} emissions produced during the conversion process.

Recent technological advances in processes for converting natural gas into liquid fuels, combined with a growing need for cleaner, low-sulfur distillate fuel to mitigate the environmental impacts of diesel engines have raised the possibility of a substantial global gas-to-liquids (G-T-L) industry. This report examines the implications of G-T-L supply for U.S. energy security and the environment. It appears that a G-T-L industry would increase competitiveness in world liquid fuels markets, even if OPEC states are major producers of G-T-L's. Cleaner G-T-L distillates would help reduce air pollution from diesel engines. Implications for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could be positive or negative, depending on the sources of natural gas, their alternative uses, and the degree of sequestration that can be achieved for CO2 emissions produced during the conversion process.

This document summarizes in a series of tables the key data of the petroleum industry and of the other energies for the year 2006. Data of the two previous years are given for comparison: 1 - petroleum, France: exploration, reserves, production, transports (tankers, pipelines, crude and refined products), storage capacities, status of resources and uses, foreign trade (imports, prices, exports), refining (capacities, facilities), evolution of supplies, automotive fuels consumption; 2 - energies, France: production, consumption and trade data for coal, natural gas, electricity; total production and consumption of primary energy; consumption per sector of use; 3 - petroleum, world: crude production and reserves per geographical area, OPEC production, imports/exports and refining/consumption per geographical area, international quotation for crudes and refined products; 4 - energies, world: reserves, production and consumption data for coal, natural gas and electricity; uranium production and resources; total primary energy production and consumption per energy source and geographical area. (J.S.)

This document summarizes in a series of tables the key data of the petroleum industry and of the other energies for the year 2005. Data of the two previous years are given for comparison: 1 - petroleum, France: exploration, reserves, production, transports (tankers, pipelines, crude and refined products), storage capacities, status of resources and uses, foreign trade (imports, prices, exports), refining (capacities, facilities), evolution of supplies, automotive fuels consumption; 2 - energies, France: production, consumption and trade data for coal, natural gas, electricity; total production and consumption of primary energy; consumption per sector of use; 3 - petroleum, world: crude production and reserves per geographical area, OPEC production, imports/exports and refining/consumption per geographical area, international quotation for crudes and refined products; 4 - energies, world: reserves, production and consumption data for coal, natural gas and electricity; uranium production and resources; total primary energy production and consumption per energy source and geographical area. (J.S.)

The 85 oil-importing developing countries (LDCs) have a critical need for energy to fuel economic development, but the US is opposing a World Bank proposal to double energy-development loans. The LDCs have borne most of the burden of balance-of-payment inequities, which has stopped their development progress. Proper management of their indigenous energy sources, with financial help from the World Bank, could eliminate much of this burden. The author feels that application of Reagonomics to this problem is short-sighted and self-defeating because the industrialized countries need debts repaid, new markets for exports, and less competition for OPEC oil. These will accompany economic recovery in the LDCs. (DCK)

A medium term view of the prospects for oil production in continental Europe, focusing on the offshore production in UK and Norwegian waters, is presented. The paper begins with a recent history and an overview of current oil production and recent trends. The growth of North Sea production has been important, contributing more than two-thirds of the growth in non OPEC oil production. The development of the Andrew field in the UK North Sea is presented as an example of new management methods succeeding in enhancing the economic viability of oil fields that would otherwise be marginal or non economic The Foinaven field in the new West of Shetlands province illustrates the way in which the combination of technological advances and changes in industry practices is extending the frontiers of commercial viability. Supply projections show North Sea production continuing to grow, but not as rapidly as over the past five years. (author). 7 figs., 8 refs.

Stochastic simulation of the direct economic costs of oil dependence in an uncertain future is proposed as a useful metric of oil dependence. The market failure from which these costs arise is imperfect competition in the world oil market, chiefly as a consequence of the use of market power by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel. Oil dependence costs can be substantial. It is estimated that oil dependence costs to the US economy in 2008 will exceed $500 billion. Other costs, such as military expenditures or foreign policy constraints are deemed to be largely derivative of the actual or potential economic costs of oil dependence. The use of quantifiable economic costs as a security metric leads to a measurable definition of oil independence, or oil security, which can be used to test the ability of specific policies to achieve oil independence in an uncertain future. (author)

It may be labeled sport utility vehicle, SUV, sport-ute, suburban assault vehicle, or a friend of OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries). It has been the subject of comics, the object of high-finance marketing ploys, and the theme of Dateline. Whatever the label or the occasion, this vehicle is in great demand. The popularity of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) has increased dramatically since the late 1970s, and SUVs are currently the fastest growing segment of the motor vehicle industry. Hoping to gain market share due to the popularity of the expanding SUV market, more and more manufacturers are adding SUVs to their vehicle lineup. One purpose of this study is to analyze the world of the SUV to determine why this vehicle has seen such a rapid increase in popularity. Another purpose is to examine the impact of SUVs on energy consumption, emissions, and highway safety.

This document analyzes the geopolitical aspects of the energy security policy of Europe, its vulnerability with respect to other regions of the world with strong economic development and consumption (North America and East Asia), the failures of the European energy policies, and the dangers for Europe of strong changes in the rest of the World: Middle East's geopolitical instabilities, increased consumption of energy and raw materials by emerging economies, general discontinuity for raw material prices, emergence of non-OPEC oil and gas producers, high import dependency ratios from non-OECD countries. Then it analyzes the global energy scarcity hypothesis according to different scenarios: resurgence of geopolitical conflicts around resources, geopolitical spill-over from increased scarcity of resources, or interplay of market forces and business strategy. Finally, it sounds two alarms regarding energy policy: the decline of active energy saving policies across Europe, and the threat of liberalization on energy security policy. (J.S.)

This study forecasts the world oil and gas demands for 2008-2030 by applying econometric formulations. The basic variables are world GDP and Brent price. The forecast assumptions are: sound world economic growth remains, despite falling rates during the period; Brent prices continue high, but in a lower level, in 2006 constant prices, in harmony with Energy Information Administration reference scenario. Findings show that, should assumptions prove to be correct, world oil and gas demands will reach 118 million bbl/d and 5 trillion cubic meters in 2030, respectively. In other words, world oil demand will grow at 1.4% per year, while world gas demand will increase at 2.5% per year. Although such figures are similar to those from other institutions (EIA, IEA and OPEC), structural changes in oil and gas markets, catalyzed by high oil prices and energy and environmental policies, may reduce forecast strength of the specifications proposed. (author)

History suggests that energy policy priorities can be stratified, similar to the way Maslow structured his famous pyramid of human needs. The essay below claims that access to energy, supply security, energy costs, environmental issues and social acceptance are not subject to trade-off, but to a hierarchy that underlies the importance of satisfying lower-order needs before addressing the higher-order needs. The essay demonstrates the hierarchy with an 'energy policy needs pyramid' based on historical evidence. The pyramid is used to analyze the viability of current items of the energy policy agenda. Conclusions indicate that the Kyoto protocol might be a victim of supply insecurity, that OPEC is good for the environment and that environmentalists should make the fight against energy poverty their first priority in order to achieve their overall goals.

In current and previous efforts, ECON has provided a preliminary economic assessment of a fusion research program. Part of this effort was the demonstration of a methodology for the estimation of reactor system costs and risk and for the treatment of program alternatives as a series of steps (tests) to buy information, thereby controlling program risk and providing a sound economic rationale for properly constructed research programs. The first phase of work also identified two areas which greatly affect the overall economic evaluation of fusion research and which warranted further study in the second phase. This led to the two tasks of the second phase reported herein: (1) discount rate determination and (2) evaluation of the effect of the expectation of the introduction of fusion power on current fossil fuel prices. In the first task, various conceptual measures of the social rate of discount were reviewed and critiqued. In the second task, a benefit area that had been called out by ECON was further examined. Long-range R and D yields short-term benefits in the form of lower nonrenewable energy resource prices because the R and D provides an expectation of future competition for the remaining reserves at the time of technology availability. ECON developed a model of optimal OPEC petroleum pricing as a function of the expectation of future competing technologies. It was shown that the existence of this expectation lowers the optimal OPEC export price and that accelerated technology R and D programs should provide further price decreases. These price reductions translate into benefits to the U.S. of at least a billion dollars.

The reemergence of concern about energy security in the wake of the September 2001 terror attacks amplified a theme that was already present in U.S. energy policy debates. Energy security was a central theme in the Bush administration energy policy report released by Vice President Cheney in the spring of 2001. World oil prices rose from about 10 dollar a barrel in 1998 to more than 30 dollar a barrel in late 2000. Prices trended down through most of 2001 to below 20 dollar a barrel, although the combined effect of improving economic conditions, OPEC supply cuts, and Middle East conflict (both actual and potential) have recently brought prices back into the dollar 25 per barrel neighborhood. In 2000 the United States imported almost 60 percent of the petroleum it consumed; imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) made up about a quarter of total U.S. consumption. In previous energy security debates in the U.S., most of the attention has been on international oil markets and geopolitics. This time, even before September 11, the energy security debate had a much larger domestic component. The 2001 ''electricity market meltdown'' in California raised large concerns there and nationwide about the causes and consequences of electricity shortages and price volatility. The concerns run so deep that they are likely to have a significant effect on the ongoing debate about restructuring of the power sector though the nature of that effect remains to be determined. Similarly, periods of sharply rising motor fuels prices over the past few years increases well beyond what would be implied just by crude oil price volatility have led to concerns about the effects on households and commerce. All of these concerns are only amplified by worries about attacks on critical energy infrastructure. (author)

The alarming effects, concerns, and even the insights into long-range energy planning that grew out of the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 are fading from the view of a shortsighted public. The enthusiastic initiatives taken in many countries for the development of alternative energy sources have withered due to lack of economic and/or ideological incentive. The events since December 1985, when the members of OPEC decided to increase production in an effort to capture their share of market, have brought down the prices of a barrel of crude to less than US $11 and have made any rational analysis very complex. This has made even the proponents of the alternative energy sources pause and think. The US has, as usual, oscillated from panic to complacency. The Libyan crisis, however, has brought the dangers of complacency into sharp focus. The first commercial coal gasification plant, constructed with a capital investment of over US $2 billion, was abandoned by the owners and is being operated by the US Department of Energy temporarily. In their effort to find a private owner, the US Department of Energy has set the date of auction of this prestigious plant for May 28, 1986. And if an appropriate bid is not forthcoming, the plant faces a very uncertain future. Coal, considered by the World Coal Study (WOCOL) at MIT in 1980, to be a bridge to a global energy future, seems to have lost its luster due to the oil glut which we all know is temporary. This was evident when the bill to grant the Right of Eminent Domain for transportation of coal was defeated. This conference was organized to bring together experts in different areas from various countries to discuss the state of the art and the rate of progress in different alternative energy forms. The recent accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in USSR has brought home the need of diversification of the alternative energy sources.

The percentage of chemotherapy-induced necrosis in primary tumors corresponds with outcome in several childhood malignancies, including high-risk metastatic diseases. In this retrospective pilot study, the authors assessed the importance of postchemotherapy necrosis in high-risk neuroblastoma with a histological and case notes review of surgically resected specimens. The authors reviewed all available histology of 31 high-risk neuroblastoma cases treated with COJEC (dose intensive etoposide and vincristine with either cyclophosphamide, cisplatin or carboplatin) or OPEC/OJEC (etoposide, vincristine and cyclophosphamide with alternating cisplatin [OPEC] or carboplatin [OJEC]) induction chemotherapy in 2 Children's Cancer & Leukaemia Group (CCLG) pediatric oncology centers. The percentage of postchemotherapy necrosis was assessed and compared with MYCN amplification status and overall survival. The median percentage of postchemotherapy tumor necrosis was 60%. MYCN status was available for 28 cases, of which 12 were amplified (43%). Survival in cases with ≥ 60% necrosis or ≥ 90% necrosis was not better than those with less necrosis, nor was percentage necrosis associated with survival using Cox regression. However, MYCN-amplified tumors showed a higher percentage of necrosis than non-MYCN-amplified tumors, 71.3% versus 37.2% (P = .006). This effect was not related to prechemotherapy necrosis and did not confer improved overall survival. Postchemotherapy tumor necrosis is higher in patients with MYCN amplification. In this study, postchemotherapy necrosis did not correlate with overall survival and should not lead to modification of postoperative treatment. However, these findings need to be confirmed in a larger prospective study of children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

Supply shortfalls – from the Libyan civil war in 2011 and international sanctions on Iran in 2012 to a swathe of unplanned non-OPEC output stoppages – have buffeted the oil market, sending prices near 2008 highs and rekindling debate on the role of speculation in fuelling volatility. There have also been success stories. Growth in North American light, tight oil and non-conventional supply has reached game-changing levels. Iraqi production has scaled new heights, the Libyan production recovery in 2012 defied expectations and Saudi output surged to 30-year highs. On the demand front, the economic recovery has lost momentum. Market share continues to shift from mature to newly industrialised economies, but amid persistent concerns about the health of the former; China, the leading engine of oil demand growth of the last 15 years, is giving signs of slowdown. Those developments have challenged earlier assumptions and significantly changed the oil market outlook for the next five years. The IEA Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR) – companion to the monthly OMR – draws their implications for the future. It provides detailed projections for oil supply at field level, crude quality trends, demand by product, refined product output and oil investments through 2017. It examines oil price formation, regulatory changes, OPEC dynamics and the future of spare capacity – while also reviewing the contribution of new supplies from deepwater, light tight oil, biofuel and natural gas liquids. It explores how market changes are reshaping the refining industry – and what that means for trade flows. At a time of heightened economic and geopolitical risk, MTOMR is essential reading for anyone interested in oil market dynamics and in understanding the oil market context in which these risks are playing out.

Research on future climate change is driven by the family of scenarios developed for the IPCC assessment reports. These scenarios create projections of future energy demand using different story lines consisting of government policies, population projections, and economic models. None of these scenarios consider resources to be limiting. In many of these scenarios oil production is still increasing to 2100. Resource limitation (in a geological sense) is a real possibility that needs more serious consideration. The concept of 'Peak Oil' has been discussed since M. King Hubbert proposed in 1956 that US oil production would peak in 1970. His prediction was accurate. This concept is about production rate not reserves. For many oil producing countries (and all OPEC countries) reserves are closely guarded state secrets and appear to be overstated. Claims that the reserves are 'proven' cannot be independently verified. Hubbert's Linearization Model can be used to predict when half the ultimate oil will be produced and what the ultimate total cumulative production (Qt) will be. US oil production can be used as an example. This conceptual model shows that 90% of the ultimate US oil production (Qt = 225 billion barrels) will have occurred by 2011. This approach can then be used to suggest that total global production will be about 2200 billion barrels and that the half way point will be reached by about 2010. This amount is about 5 to 7 times less than assumed by the IPCC scenarios. The decline of Non-OPEC oil production appears to have started in 2004. Of the OPEC countries, only Saudi Arabia may have spare capacity, but even that is uncertain, because of lack of data transparency. The concept of 'Peak Coal' is more controversial, but even the US National Academy Report in 2007 concluded only a small fraction of previously estimated reserves in the US are actually minable reserves and that US reserves should be reassessed using modern methods. British coal production can be

Full Text Available Terms of trade are meant to show the ratio by which a country is different in the level and dynamics of revenues from the exchange made by different categories of products on the external markets. The level of recorded revenues from the commercialization of products and services varies from country to country, and there is rarely a mutually beneficial exchange situation from these operations. Trade efficiency analysis lies in the determination of the terms of trade. In the current paper, international developments are analyzed based on net terms of trade index used by UNCTAD. Statistical data are provided by the World Bank, where export and import price index and the volume of imports and exports by countries were considered. The classification of the countries has been done according to the geographical orientation and based on the purchasing power parity, thus creating two tables, the first table highlighting seven regions, and the second table with seven categories of states including OPEC and non-OPEC members. The terms of trade evolution are influenced by certain important factors in the production process of goods and services. Some of these factors are mentioned: labour productivity; changes in commodity prices; yet, only the last factor is examined in this paper. Based on World Bank commodity price data, the evolution of major energy inputs such as crude oil, gas, coal, and major industrial raw materials such as aluminium, copper, lead, nickel, tin, zinc, silver, gold, platinum and iron was analysed and interpreted. For Romania, the data on terms of trade evolution shows a dramatic situation. If terms of trade development presented a cyclical evolution, the economy as a whole would send an optimistic message. In contrast, the data presented in the following paper will show that our country has registered continuous depreciation of the terms of trade ratio, with a direct impact on external trade balance deficits, a rising external debt

For flux measurement, the eddy covariance technique supplies a possibility to directly measure the exchange between vegetation and atmosphere; and there are two kinds of eddy covariance systems, open-path and close-path systems. For the system error, it may result in difference of flux measurements by two systems. Therefore, it is necessary to compare the measured results from them. ChinaFLUX covers of eight sites applied the micrometeorological method, in which Changbai Mountains (CBS) and Qianyanzhou (QYZ) carried out open-path eddy covariance (OPEC) and close-path eddy covariance (CPEC) measurements synchronously.In this paper the data sets of CBS and QYZ were employed. The delay time of close-path analyzer to the open-path analyzer was calculated; the spectra and cospectra of time-series data of OPEC and CPEC were analyzed; the open-path flux measurement was used as a standard comparison, the close-path flux measurement results were evaluated. The results show that, at two sites the delay time of CO2 density for close-path analyzer was about 7.0-8.0 s, H2O density about 8.0-9.0 s; the spectrum from the open-path, close-path and 3D sonic anemometer was consistent with the expected -2/3 slope (log-log plot), and the cospectra showed the expected slope of -4/3 in the internal subrange; the CO2 flux measured by the close-path sensor was about 84% of that of open-path measurement at QYZ, about 80% at CBS, and the latent heat flux was balanced for two systems at QYZ, 86% at CBS. From the flux difference between open-path and close-path analyzers, it could be inferred that the attenuation of turbulent fluctuations in flow through tube of CPEC affected H2O flux more significantly than CO2 flux. The gap between two systems was bigger at CBS than at QYZ; the diurnal variation in CO2 flux of two measurement systems was very consistent.

The oil exporting countries can be vulnerable to this row-material as the oil importing ones, due to their social economic dependence of the revenues generated by the oil and gas sector. So, it is also important for those countries the analysis of their social economic vulnerability in order to contribute for the comprehension of their real actions related to their production strategies, aiming to affect oil price and market-share. Due to that, this thesis proposes a methodology based on social economic indicators of oil exporting countries, which will enclose the following aspects: physical, productive, commercial, macro economic, fiscal and social. These indicators will be applied to the OPEC members, Norway and Mexico, and orientated through a normalized scale as in a multicriteria methodology (AHP - Analytic Hierarchy Process). The analyzed results will drive the social economic implications, and the studied countries will be classified in a scale that goes from very favorable to very unfavorable. The results point the main social economic fragilities of the oil exporting countries, designing pathways to Brazil and their possible exporting ambitions. The most important considerations that became from the vulnerable oil export countries experiences refers to the necessity to straight and increases their macro economic foundations, industrial diversification incentives and the creation of an stabilization fund (based on oil revenues) for the future generations, or to severe oil prices oscillations periods in the international market (author)

Usual trends in the world have changed direction in the 1990s. We do not yet fully know the consequences of these altered trends. As population continues to grow, basic agricultural and industrial production falls (e.g., 1%/year decline in grain production and 0.6%/year decline in oil production). Moreover, world economic growth has fallen .8% annually in the early 1990s. It is feared that these shifts are not short term as were the instabilities generated during the 1973 increase in oil prices. The shifts in the 1990s are not limited to several national political leaders (e.g., OPEC), but are a result of the collision between swelling human numbers and their needs and the limitations of the earth's natural systems on the other. These limitations include the capacity of seas to produce seafood, of grasslands to yield mutton and beef, of the hydrological cycle to generate fresh water, of crops to use fertilizer, of the atmosphere to absorb carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons, and of people to inhale polluted air, and of forests to resist acid rain. These constraints are forcing the realization that each nation must reduce consumption of the earth's natural resources and implement a population policy. The challenge is for social institutions to quickly check and stabilize population growth without infringing in human rights.

For several decades, interest in hydrogen has ebbed and flowed. With the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970`s and the promise of inexpensive nuclear power, hydrogen research focused on fuel applications. The economics and the realities of nuclear power shifted the emphasis to hydrogen as an energy carrier. Environmental benefits took center stage as scientists and politicians agreed on the potential threat of carbon dioxide emissions to global climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Utility Technologies manages the National Hydrogen Program. In this role, the DOE provides national leadership and acts as a catalyst through partnerships with industry. These partnerships are needed to assist in the transition of sustainable hydrogen systems from a government-supported research and development phase to commercial successes in the marketplace. The outcome of the Program is expected to be the orderly phase-out of fossil fuels as a result of market-driven technology advances, with a least-cost, environmentally benign energy delivery system. The program seeks to maintain its balance of high-risk, long-term research in renewable based technologies that address the environmental benefits, with nearer-term, fossil based technologies that address infrastructure and market issues. National laboratories, universities, and industry are encouraged to participate, cooperate, and collaborate in the program. The U.S. Hydrogen Program is poised to overcome the technical and economic challenges that currently limit the impact of hydrogen on our energy picture, through cooperative research, development, and demonstrations.

How much oil will the world consume in 2011? What role will OPEC play in global oil production? Will biofuels become an important part of the oil market? The International Energy Agencys (IEA) Medium-Term Oil Market Report tackles these questions, adopting a perspective that goes beyond the traditional short-term market analysis provided in the IEAs monthly Oil Market Report. Drawing on current futures curves and the investment threshold for upstream projects, the Medium-Term Oil Market Report analyses how global demand and supply balances may develop in the next five years. The forecasts look in detail at product demand and the supply potential from all the firmly planned individual upstream and downstream projects around the world. The results provide invaluable insights on vital issues such as surplus production capacity and product supply. The rapid pace of change in the oil market means that forecasts can become outdated very quickly. This interim update provides the opportunity to rebase the data and forecasts in the annual Medium-Term Oil Market Report and to discuss and analyse new issues affecting the oil industry. Policymakers, market analysts, energy experts and anyone interested in understanding and following trends in the oil market should find this report extremely useful.

Full Text Available The Republic of Azerbaijan must face up to a double challenge: to go from being a centrally planned economy to being a market economy and managing productively the significant hydrocarbon resources found in the Caspian Sea. Some International Monetary Fund experts feel that the most plausible hypothesis regarding the Azeri economy’s futureis that it will behave in a way similar to the OPEC countries. Specifically, they argue that Azerbaijan may suffer a contraction of manufacturing production as a result of the boom in the hydrocarbons sector –the so-called “Dutch syndrome”– and that the phenomenonmay be aggravated by a undervaluation of the currency typical of economies in transition. This study sets out to determine whether this diagnosis is accurate and whether the series of political economics measures they propose for remedying the situation is appropriate for putting the country on the path of balanced growth. In both cases the answer is no, given that it appears unlikely that in the short term Dutch syndrome effects will be generated in this economy and that the most probable result of the policies proposedwould be the creation of a petroleum enclave which, in the context of globalization, would encourage a new “petro-dollarization” of international financial markets.

Why have oil prices hit US$140 per barrel? How strong will oil demand be in the upcoming years? Will supply of crude oil, natural gas liquids and biofuels be sufficient to meet this future demand? And, no less crucially, what investments in refining capacity and technology can we expect and will these help ease some of the imbalance in strained oil product markets? The Medium-Term Oil Market Report (now in its third year) published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) has become a new benchmark, complementing the short-term market analysis provided in the IEA Oil Market Report. This year's edition reappraises all upstream and downstream projects worldwide, setting them against a revised demand forecast and expanding the time horizon to 2013. Special features this year include in-depth analyses of price formation, transport trends, non-OECD economies, non-OPEC production decline, project slippage, key crude export pipeline developments and a stronger emphasis on product supply bottlenecks. An essential report for all policy makers, market analysts, energy experts and anyone interested in understanding and following oil market trends, the Medium-Term Oil Market Report is a further element of the strong commitment of the IEA to improving and expanding the quality, timeliness and accuracy of energy data and analysis.

The present situation and the future prospects for Algeria's petroleum industry are reviewed. Algeria has attracted much foreign investment and there is still much under-explored land: the reserves of on-shore natural gas are vast and the future prospects for oil and gas are good. Some of the very significant discoveries of the 1990s are detailed. 25% of the gas imported by the EU comes from Algeria. Despite civil war in Algeria, the interests of foreign oil companies are said to be in safe areas although the article does suggest that companies should always be prepared for trouble. In the domestic sector, Algeria is Africa's biggest consumer of gas. Algeria's oil production capacity could be 1.4m b/d by the end of 1999. Ownership and activities of the various gas and oil facilities are discussed. The government encourages foreigners to build new refineries on a BOT basis and existing refineries may be deregulated. The already large petrochemical sector is set to expand with foreign investment. Algeria's exports of crude oil are reported and the impact of non-compliance with OPEC rules are discussed. The Algerian state company Sonatrach's interests overseas are also mentioned. Finally, the people making the decisions are discussed. (UK)

As the economy of Libya is, like other OPEC countries, greatly dependent on petroleum, its account is now in the red owing to the recent decrease of petroleum income. Petroleum development in Libya was started in 1955, and more than 3 million barrels of petroleum came to be produced per day in 1970 thanks to the light and low-sulfur quality of the petroleum. As a result of the nationalizing policy of petroleum undertakings after the revolution, the government's participation rate became 60.7% in 1974. The USA began sanction on Libya in 1981 and the export to the USA decreased suddenly, but Libya maintained the export amount of 1 million barrels per day with the exports to Western Europe and with flexible export policies. These flexible policies, in a way, accelerated the adverse development in the market and caused the decrease of petroleum income. The constructions of petroleum factories have been postponed or stopped because of the low petroleum income, and the recent export amount of manufactured petroleum is only about 130,000 barrels per day. libya is, therefore, to push the diversification of undertakings and to develop gas resources and the like in the future. In connection with the diversification of undertakings, Libya is actively pushing into the foreign petroleum markets and joining hands with foreign petroleum companies. (6 figs, 8 tabs)

This document reports the work performed by the French 'Centre d'Analyse Strategique' until the first of November within the perspective of a new international agreement to struggle against climate change beyond 2012. The basic idea is that such an agreement will have a meaning only if it is signed and ratified by the both main greenhouse gas emitting countries, the United States and China. A first part of this report describes the context and the post-2012 negotiation perspectives, as well as the status of international cooperation in the field of climate change. The two following chapters present syntheses of the climate policies and negotiation postures of China and United States. Then, the authors give an overview of the strategic interests and postures of some other big countries like India, Brazil, Russia, Canada, OPEC countries, and so on. The last part deals with issues of rights of intellectual property applied to the elaboration of 'clean' technologies and to international technological transfers.

Oil prices set further records at the start of May before falling back. December WTI hit an all-time high of $78.00/bbl on Nymex on 3rd May. IPE November Brent went up to a record $76.45/bbl. Both contracts eventually settled lower and prices in general weakened before staging a minor rally at the end of the month. Other price records were broken early in the month. In Asia, the Indonesian marker grade, Minas, was recorded at $74.04/bbl on 2nd May, whilst Malaysia's Tapis went above $76.70/bbl. Strong Asian demand also boosted the prices of West African crudes. The markets appeared to be reacting to growing tensions in Iraq, Iran and Nigeria. These considerations returned to haunt the markets later in the month. All crude oil loadings at Iraq's Persian Gulf marine terminal were suspended following a fire, though the main Gulf terminal at Basrah continued to operate. The Ceyhan terminal remained out of action. Tensions between the US and Iran over the latter's nuclear programme gave rise to fears of an embargo on Iranian oil exports. Several foreign oil workers were kidnapped following an armed attack on oil installations in Nigeria. OPEC ministers kept their production ceiling unchanged at 28 mn bpd at a meeting in Caracas. (author)

Estimated future energy cost savings associated with the development of cost-competitive solar thermal technologies (STT) are discussed. Analysis is restricted to STT in electric applications for 16 high-insolation/high-energy-price states. Three fuel price scenarios and three 1990 STT system costs are considered, reflecting uncertainty over future fuel prices and STT cost projections. Solar thermal technology research and development (R&D) is found to be unacceptably risky for private industry in the absence of federal support. Energy cost savings were projected to range from $0 to $10 billion (1990 values in 1981 dollars), depending on the system cost and fuel price scenario. Normal R&D investment risks are accentuated because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel can artificially manipulate oil prices and undercut growth of alternative energy sources. Federal participation in STT R&D to help capture the potential benefits of developing cost-competitive STT was found to be in the national interest. Analysis is also provided regarding two federal incentives currently in use: The Federal Business Energy Tax Credit and direct R&D funding.

According to A. Cluer (Inst. Pet.) at the Eurochem 80 conference (Birm. June 1980), the available reserves of conventional crude oil are, or will soon be, at their peak. The Middle East has 57% of the 88,000 Mtons of crude oil known to exist, about a 30 yr supply at current production rates. Uncertain supplies and an OPEC market price of about $35/bbl can only stimulate the development of synthetic oil production from coal and other hydrocarbon sources, although this will be hindered by environmental problems, large investments, and the long lead times needed, a view shared by J. Solbett (Humphreys and Glasgow Ltd.) at the conference. Both speakers agreed that the use of oil for transport and chemical feeds, for which oil is ideally suited, is the least amenable area for substitution by synthetic fuels; and that it is therefore important that general energy requirements be satisfied by alternatives such as coal and nuclear power. Cluer cited OECD statistics which show that implementing minimum energy efficiency standards could cut by 35% transport energy consumption, by 1985. Comments by T. Kantyka (ICI) on the cost effectiveness of energy conservation are also discussed.

The energy statistical data (a 1995 overseas issue) were made public by the Energy Metrics Analysis Center, the Institute of Energy Economics. As for energy in general, described are the reserve/existing amount, a change of the production amount, the consumption amount of primary energy in the world, etc. As to oil, natural gas and coal, stated were the confirmed reserve, a change of the production amount, a change of the consumption amount, world import/export flows, etc. Concerning electric power, the paper deals with a change of the amount of electric power consumption in the world, constitution of the power generation amount by power source, a change of power generation capability, changes of capabilities of thermal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power, etc. With regard to data by country, a lot of data are included on the U.S., Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Russian Federation, and China. The paper also describes situations in OPEC countries, changes of the situation of Majors, and prices of crude oil, petroleum products, coal, natural gas and LPG, and electric power, etc.

In support of the International Photovoltaic Program Plan prepared for DOE by SERI, Strategies Unlimited has conducted a study to assess the impact of international financial institutions on the markets for solar electric systems, especially on photovoltaic power systems. This report reviews the sources and uses of funds for economic development in the Third World. The origin of development funds since 1970 is quantified, the channels through which funds reach the developing countries are examined, and the economic sectors within the developing countries where funds are applied are detailed. This report includes a review of the World Bank, principal regional development banks, OPEC institutions, US Export-Import Bank, principal US commercial banks, and the Euro-currency markets of the world as they finance the developing world. Both concessional and nonconcessional transfers are identified, including both official and private sources. Development bank loan practices are reviewed, including an analysis of sectors, priorities, and trends. US commercial bank international activities are reviewed including the identification of bank exposure by developing country. The report also discusses selected solar energy projects funded by the development banks. Recommendations are prepared for government policy to accelerate the widespread use of photovoltaic systems in international markets.

This report summarizes the 2001 activity of the French general direction of energy and raw materials (DGEMP) of the ministry of finances and industry: 1 - security of energy supplies: a recurrent problem; 2001, a transition year for nuclear energy worldwide; petroleum refining in font of the 2005 dead-line; the OPEC and the upset of the oil market; the pluri-annual planning of power production investments; renewable energies: a reconfirmed priority; 2 - the opening of markets: the opening of French electricity and gas markets; the international development of Electricite de France (EdF) and of Gaz de France (GdF); electricity and gas industries: first branch agreements; 3 - the present-day topics: 2001, the year of objective contracts; AREVA, the future to be prepared; the new IRSN; the agreements on climate and the energy policy; the mastery of domestic energy consumptions; the safety of hydroelectric dams; Technip-Coflexip: the birth of a para-petroleum industry giant; the cleansing of the mining activity in French Guyana; the future of workmen of Lorraine basin coal mines; 4 - 2001 at a glance: highlights; main legislative and regulatory texts; 5 - DGEMP: November 2001 reorganization and new organization chart; energy and raw materials publications; www.industrie.gouv.fr/energie. (J.S.)

The energy statistical data (a 1995 overseas issue) were made public by the Energy Metrics Analysis Center, the Institute of Energy Economics. As for energy in general, described are the reserve/existing amount, a change of the production amount, the consumption amount of primary energy in the world, etc. As to oil, natural gas and coal, stated were the confirmed reserve, a change of the production amount, a change of the consumption amount, world import/export flows, etc. Concerning electric power, the paper deals with a change of the amount of electric power consumption in the world, constitution of the power generation amount by power source, a change of power generation capability, changes of capabilities of thermal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power, etc. With regard to data by country, a lot of data are included on the U.S., Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Russian Federation, and China. The paper also describes situations in OPEC countries, changes of the situation of Majors, and prices of crude oil, petroleum products, coal, natural gas and LPG, and electric power, etc.

This paper investigates how competition and cooperation among oil exporting countries, particularly among OPEC members, affects extraction policies and hence oil supply price. In the economic literature analyzing the global warming problem, the behaviour of fossil fuel suppliers is taken as given, assuming competitive or non-cooperative producers. For given supply behaviour demand reducing strategies backed by some form of energy or carbon tax will extract economic rents for the benefit of tax imposing countries. Since one of the most important carbon emitting fossil fuels is oil, the behaviour of oil exporting countries reacting strategically rather than passively when confronted by the threat of a carbon tax, must be considered. Cooperation among oligopolistic oil exporting countries allows to lead in a Stackelberg game. The solution of this simple optimal control problem allows to minimize the rent extracting effects of a taxation on oil. This requires oil exporting countries to reach a collusive agreement and abide by it. Collusion under the threat of an energy or carbon tax will be more stable than without. (orig.)

Estimated future energy cost savings associated with the development of cost-competitive solar thermal technologies (STT) are discussed. Analysis is restricted to STT in electric applications for 16 high-insolation/high-energy-price states. Three fuel price scenarios and three 1990 STT system costs are considered, reflecting uncertainty over future fuel prices and STT cost projections. Solar thermal technology research and development (R&D) is found to be unacceptably risky for private industry in the absence of federal support. Energy cost savings were projected to range from $0 to $10 billion (1990 values in 1981 dollars), depending on the system cost and fuel price scenario. Normal R&D investment risks are accentuated because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel can artificially manipulate oil prices and undercut growth of alternative energy sources. Federal participation in STT R&D to help capture the potential benefits of developing cost-competitive STT was found to be in the national interest. Analysis is also provided regarding two federal incentives currently in use: The Federal Business Energy Tax Credit and direct R&D funding.

The economic and social benefits of developing cost competitive solar thermal technologies (STT) were assessed. The analysis was restricted to STT in electric applications for 16 high insolation/high energy price states. Three fuel price scenarios and three 1990 STT system costs were considered, reflecting uncertainty over fuel prices and STT cost projections. After considering the numerous benefits of introducing STT into the energy market, three primary benefits were identified and evaluated: (1) direct energy cost savings were estimated to range from zero to $50 billion; (2) oil imports may be reduced by up to 9 percent, improving national security; and (3) significant environmental benefits can be realized in air basins where electric power plant emissions create substantial air pollution problems. STT research and development was found to be unacceptably risky for private industry in the absence of federal support. The normal risks associated with investments in research and development are accentuated because the OPEC cartel can artificially manipulate oil prices and undercut the growth of alternative energy sources.

Full Text Available In the scientific literature business models are defined as architecture of the value creation, profit formula, key processes and key resources. For the oil industry there is a need to develop new business models that have to describe the specificity of this industry and to take into consideration the new objectives after the global oil crisis. Although crude oil price has dropped dramatically since second quarter 2014, OPEC raised crude output to the its highest value in more than three years as it pressed on with a strategy to protect market share and pressure competing producers. The objective of this article is to identify and promote new business models for state companies in the oil industry. The research methodology is based on case studies that present and analyze the business models in two of the main oil producers Iran and Iraq, where the state companies are playing an important role in this industry. The subject is relevant because the business models for state companies in the oil industry have to be modified after the oil crisis and these are not real analysed in the scientific literature. Furthermore, the aspects discussed in the current article represent the main factors that will influence investment prospects of companies in the field in the next decade.

The 1973 energy crisis demonstrated that the international petroleum industry is not totally free. Very often it has been the object of an organization, even during the domination of international oil companies which have established a petroleum international system with a system of concession rights. This system is based on an oligopolistic structure which had the characteristics of a monopoly. This vertically integrated structure of the world petroleum industry during the 1920-1950 era was more or less locked up by the system of concessions. The incompatibility of this system of excessively long concession contracts with the economical development needs of oil exporting countries has led to their abolishment. They have been replaced by new agreements. As soon as the creation of stable and permanent international oil organizations (OPEC, OAPEC, IEA), an institutional right has been established which has generated international rights and principles governing the contractual relations between oil exporting and oil importing countries. This international petroleum right is both original and specific, it is evolutive, contractual and normative. (J.S.)

2007: the world is becoming used to a high oil price. With an average price of 72.6 US$ per barrel for the ICE Brent, the crude rates show a 9.8% rise with respect to the 2006 ones (66.11 US$/b) following the 20% rise observed in 2006. Price rates show a sawtooth evolution but with a general rise over the full year. Thanks to a US$ change rate favorable to the euro, the 2007 average is of 52.76 euro/b with respect to 52.65 euro/b in 2006. At the end of the year 2007 the barrel price reached 93.85 US$/b with respect to 60.86 US$/b at the end of 2006. The document analyses the impact of these high prices on the economies of oil-consuming and oil-producing countries. It presents the 2007 highlights of the main OPEC countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Iraq, Nigeria, Angola), and then analyses the international quotations of petroleum products on the Rotterdam market and the prices of petroleum products in France. (J.S.)

Oil, as used in agriculture and transportation, is the lifeblood of modern society. It is finite in quantity and will someday be exhausted. In 1956, Hubbert proposed a theory of resource production and applied it successfully to predict peak U.S. oil production in 1970. Bartlett extended this work in publications and lectures on the finite nature of oil and its production peak and depletion. Both Hubbert and Bartlett place peak world oil production at a similar time, essentially now. Central to these analyses are estimates of total ``oil in place'' obtained from engineering studies of oil reservoirs as this quantity determines the area under the Hubbert's Peak. Knowing the production history and the total oil in place allows us to make estimates of reserves, and therefore future oil availability. We will then examine reserves data for various countries, in particular OPEC countries, and see if these data tell us anything about the future availability of oil. Finally, we will comment on synthetic oil and the possibility of carbon-neutral synthetic oil for a sustainable future.

Full Text Available This study provides an overview of the pattern of the gross capital flows of the current and capital accounts of the balance of payments of the group of six Gulf Cooperation Council countries during the last decade that includes the global crisis years. As a comprehensive overview is lacking in the literature, while this country group has gained in importance in the global economy in particular in the years before the global crisis, this study tries to fill this gap. It benchmarks the GCC countries with the other oil-exporting OPEC countries that have a comparable size of natural resources. The GCC countries’ high investments in the world economy financed by their abundant income from oil revenues, showed their remarkably high degree of trade and financial integration in the world economy. Thanks to policies geared towards opening up borders, the GCC countries have imparted a significant stimulus to the world economy, to a much greater extent than other oil exporting countries in similar conditions. Aspects of globalization, trade and financial integration,such as the dependence on oil, “Dutch disease”, regional integration, foreign direct investment and cross-border assets and loans are addressed. The results show that the impact of the crisis has reverted international capital flows of the GCC, in particular cross-border bank loans, deposits and foreign direct investment. Current and future global policymaking needs however moretimely and consistent statistical information.

Full Text Available In this study, the tax capacity and effort and its relationship with oil revenue of 6 selected countries member in OPEC such as Iran, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Algeria and Saudi Arabia are considered. The study has been applied by panel data within 1990-2008. According to the results of Husman test, fixed effects method was confirmed for estimation of panel data. Therefore, tax capacity model was compiled and estimated via fixed effects method. The variables affecting the tax capacity including per capita income, open economics (import and export ratio to the gross domestic product and oil revenue ratio to gross domestic product and tax capacity with one lag were considered. The summary of the analysis indicated that the relationship between the per capita income, oil revenue to gross domestic product ratio and tax capacity with one lag and dependent variable is positive and significant. Whilst the open economics grade in the oil countries has negative and significant relationship with the tax capacity. At the next stage, the tax effort was computed for the studied countries according to the results of tax capacity model estimation. The results of this study indicated that the tax effort in Iran is placed in lower ranks than Venezuela, Algeria and with a inconsiderable difference to Saudi Arabia in the fourth rank out of six studied countries.

The large source of uncertainty in satellite-based evapotranspiration algorithm results from the estimation of sensible heat flux H. Traditionally eddy covariance sensors, and recently large-aperture scintillometers, have been used as ground truth to evaluate satellite-based H estimates. The two methods rely on different physical measurement principles, and represent different foot print sizes. In New Mexico, we conducted a field campaign during summer 2008 to compare H estimates obtained from the eddy covariance and scintillometer methods. During this field campaign, we installed sonic anemometers; one propeller eddy covariance (OPEC) equipped with net radiometer and soil heat flux sensors; large aperture scintillometer (LAS); and weather station consisting of wind speed, direction and radiation sensors over three different experimental areas consisting of different roughness conditions (desert, irrigated area and lake). Our results show the similarities and differences in H estimates obtained from these various methods over the different land surface conditions. Further, our results show that the H estimates obtained from the LAS agree with those obtained from the eddy covariance method when high frequency thermocouple temperature, instead of the typical weather station temperature measurements, is used in the LAS analysis.

Full Text Available This study is aimed at assessing the challenge of liquid transportation fuel in Nigeria, which necessitated the entrance of the country into the biofuel race. The study found that despite being an important member of the organization of petroleum exporting countries (OPEC, Nigeria still suffers from fuel scarcities. Reasons for the short supply of refined petroleum products (particularly gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel in Nigeria include poor capacity utilization of the nation’s refineries, disruption of crude oil supply to the refineries and political instability in the Niger Delta region (Nigeria’s oil province. Nigeria now relies heavily on foreign nations for the supply of these fuels. The country spends substantial part of her foreign exchange on fuel importation. The Federal Government now wishes to reverse this trend by initiating the automotive biofuel programme. The Nigerian automotive biofuel programme involved the construction of 9 plants comprising of 4 sugarcane and 2 cassava bioethanol projects and 3 biodiesel projects. These projects would involve the investment of $1.27 billion into the Nigerian economy for the production of 445 million L of ethanol, 192 MW of green electricity and 120 million L of biodiesel annually

Before the Industrial Revolution, nations required no energy fuel. People relied on human, animal, and wind and waterpower for energy need. Energy (oil) has resettled populations, elected officials in the free world, or changed the governments of the energy rich countries by force. Energy fueled wars, played the major factor in the might of those who have it or more importantly the abilities to acquire it by force. This dissertation researches the primacy of oil as an energy source from the time of oil's discovery to the present times. Between 1945 and 1960, the use of oil and gas doubled as power was generated for industries as steel, cement, metalworking and more important of all filling station hoses into automobiles gas tanks, thus energy swept people and societies quite literally off their feet. One in every six jobs in the industrial world hired by the giant automotive industries. The big five American oil companies spurred on by special tax benefit, these companies grew to gigantic sizes by taking out the best part of the nation's oil. Then, for greater growth, they leaped overseas and built up an immensely profitable system, in alliance with Anglo-Dutch Shell and British Petroleum, known as seven sisters. On the other side of the world, the energy producing nations form an alliance mainly to protect themselves from downward price fluctuations of oil. The struggle for survival in the global energy market forced those countries to get together and form OPEC, which is referred as an "oil cartel".

Developments in the areas of energy resources and supply technologies, energy end use and conservation, energy policy, energy-related risks and the sociopolitical aspects of energy are reviewed. Progress in solar energy technologies over the last five years is discussed, along with the implications for reactor safety of the accident at Three Mile Island, the derivation of biomass fuels from agricultural products and the application of probabilistic risk assessment to energy technologies. Attention is also given to a program for national survival during an oil crisis, energy conservation in new buildings, the development of a United States synthetic fuel industry, the role of OPEC policies in world oil availability, the social impacts of soft and hard energy systems, and the energy implications of fixed rail mass transportation systems. Additional topics include the energy consumptions of industries, the relative economics of nuclear, coal and oil-fired electricity generation, and the role of petroleum price and allocation regulations in the management of energy shortages.

The globalization and regionalization of crude oil trade inevitably give rise to the difference of crude oil prices. The understanding of the pattern of the crude oil prices' mutual propagation is essential for analyzing the development of global oil trade. Previous research has focused mainly on the fuzzy long- or short-term one-to-one propagation of bivariate oil prices, generally ignoring various patterns of periodical multivariate propagation. This study presents a wavelet-based network approach to help uncover the multipath propagation of multivariable crude oil prices in a joint time-frequency period. The weekly oil spot prices of the OPEC member states from June 1999 to March 2011 are adopted as the sample data. First, we used wavelet analysis to find different subseries based on an optimal decomposing scale to describe the periodical feature of the original oil price time series. Second, a complex network model was constructed based on an optimal threshold selection to describe the structural feature of multivariable oil prices. Third, Bayesian network analysis (BNA) was conducted to find the probability causal relationship based on periodical structural features to describe the various patterns of periodical multivariable propagation. Finally, the significance of the leading and intermediary oil prices is discussed. These findings are beneficial for the implementation of periodical target-oriented pricing policies and investment strategies.

Detailed data are presented for energy indicators in tables and graphs. Specific international data are presented: world crude oil production, 1974 to July 1981; OPEC crude oil productive capacity; world crude oil and refined product inventory levels, 1975 through the first half of 1981; oil consumption in OFCD countries, 1975 through the first half of 1981; USSR crude oil production, 1975 through July 1981; and free world and US nuclear electricity generation, 1973 through September 1981 and current capacity. Data presented for energy indicators in the US are: US domestic oil supply and crude oil production, 1977 through March 1981; US gross imports of crude oil and products, 1973 through August 1981; landed cost of Saudi crude oil in current and 1974 dollars; US coal trade, 1975 through July 1981; US natural gas trade, 1975 through August 1981; summary of US merchandise trade, 1977 through the first half of 1981; and the energy/gross national product ratio from 1974 through the first half of 1981.

Full Text Available Given the emerging consensus from previous studies that crude oil and refined product (as well as crack spread prices are cointegrated, this study examines the link between the crude oil spot and crack spread derivatives markets. Specifically, the usefulness of the two crack spread derivatives products (namely, crack spread futures and the ETF crack spread for modeling and forecasting daily OPEC crude oil spot prices is evaluated. Based on the results of a structural break test, the sample is divided into pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis periods. We find a unidirectional relationship from the two crack spread derivatives markets to the crude oil spot market during the post-crisis period. In terms of forecasting performance, the forecasting models based on crack spread futures and the ETF crack spread outperform the Random Walk Model (RWM, both in-sample and out-of-sample. In addition, on average, the results suggest that information from the ETF crack spread market contributes more to the forecasting models than information from the crack spread futures market.

Within the framework of the European project OPEC (Operational Ecology), a data assimilation system was implemented to describe chlorophyll-a concentrations of the North Aegean, as well the impact on the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) biomass distribution provided by a bioenergetics model, related to the density of three low trophic level functional groups of zooplankton (heterotrophic flagellates, microzooplankton and mesozooplankton). The three-dimensional hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model comprises two on-line coupled sub-models: the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) and the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM). The assimilation scheme is based on the Singular Evolutive Extended Kalman (SEEK) filter and its variant that uses a fixed correction base (SFEK). For the initialization, SEEK filter uses a reduced order error covariance matrix provided by the dominant Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF) of model. The assimilation experiments were performed for year 2003 using SeaWiFS chlorophyll-a data during which the physical model uses the atmospheric forcing obtained from the regional climate model HIRHAM5. The assimilation system is validated by assessing the relevance of the system in fitting the data, the impact of the assimilation on non-observed biochemical parameters and the overall quality of the forecasts.

Saudi Arabia was seriously exposed to the influence of the oil glut since 1982 as the swing producer in OPEC, which has brought up the rapid reduction in oil income, tightening and deficit in the finance. The construction industry was most severely affected by the tightened finance and economic slowdown in the country. The fourth 3-year plan (1985-89) was approved in March 1985. The plan is directed to the continued industrialization and stable growth by the combination of private investment and labor force with the continued expenditure for the people's living to function as the shock absorber under the condition of continued oil glut. However, it faced a wide reduction in oil production immediately after the initiation of the plan as the country turned to the swing producer. The government took the policy to protect its market share by the net back sales to overcome the difficulty; however, the policy has caused the fall of international oil price, resulted in further reduction of oil income. (1 fig, 9 tabs, 7 refs)

Grubb, M. [Imperial College, London (United Kingdom). J.H. Huxley School of Environmental and Earth Science, Royal School of Mines

2001-09-01

The distribution of fossil fuel reserves and resources between different regions and deposits has strong implications for climate change economics and policy. The task of stabilising the atmosphere is intimately linked to the question of long-term energy supplies as conventional petroleum reserves deplete, notwithstanding debates about the scope for expanding reserves through continued exploration and development. It suggests a supply-side component to complement the consumption orientation of existing climate policies: the task is to ensure that investment and innovation moves towards the 'low carbon frontier' instead of the 'high carbon frontier'. This also implies that the OPEC countries have little to fear about the long-run impact of climate change policy. The priority is to deter development of more carbon-intensive unconventional petroleum deposits and technologies, and to ensure that the existing trends to diversify power generation sources continue and extend more widely over time. Although supply-side constraints will not solve the climate problem they make the task a lot easier, if the opportunities are taken. 14 refs., 3 figs.

The prime difficulty in assembling and presenting information on resources is the sheer complexity of the subject. It is not enough to discuss, say, the world's oil reserves in isolation: the subject inevitably involves a discussion of prospecting and mining; of trade and transport; of uses to which oil is put; and of the political role of the oil companies and international groups such as OPEC. The whole discussion is bound up with the question of alternative fuels and thus with consideration of what kind of future society we want to live in. Every topic that falls within the scope of a book on resources has similar ramifications: all the issues are interconnected. The simple, but very important, purpose of this atlas is to explain the interrelated nature of the issues behind present questions about resources, trade, food, energy, and population: to be a sourcebook of information about them, a map and handbook of future options. As such, this work is unique, both in the way it assembles and presents information, and in terms of its practical function: it brings together all the problems and suggests options in clear language. The following major divisions are used: (1) The Nature of Resources; (2) Resources and Peoples; (3) Energy; (4) The Living Resource; (5) Minerals; and (6) Planning for Tomorrow; from 6 to 26 subdivisions appear under each major division. A glossary, index, and bibliography are included.

This study aims to investigate the real possibilities for the natural gas industry to become a global energy industry. So, it is necessary to define what global energy industry really means. In order to do a comparative analysis between the oil and natural gas industries, it is necessary to define three distinct stages of the evolution of an energy industry, namely internationalization, mundialization and globalization. This study analyzes the evolution of the oil industry trying to identify the main aspects that promoted changes and transformed the oil business into a global industry. Then, the evolution of the natural gas industry is analyzed, looking for similarities between the structural changes in both industries, and trying to determine what is the current stage of the natural gas industry. Despite the increase in the natural gas international trade and the prospects of growth of natural gas demand, there are still some challenges for this industry to effectively become global. Some of the challenges are the need of investments in production infrastructure, transportation and distribution sectors, the access to the main reserves, the uncertainty related to the demand evolution and the possible creation of a natural gas producers cartel, like the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). (author)

Between March 1 and June 15, 1980, the declared size of the commercial light waste reactor (LWR) nuclear power industry in the US has decreased another 9 GWe. For the presently declared size: the 165 declared reactors will peak at a capacity of 153 GWe in 2001 and will consume about 870,000 MTU as enrichment feed; the theoretical rate of enrichment requirements will peak at about 19,000,000 SWUs/y in the year 2014; as few as two repositories each with capacity equivalent to 100,000 MTU would hold the waste; and predisposal storage reactor basins and AFRs (away-from-reactor basins) would peak at <85,000 MTU in the year 2020 if the two respositories were commissioned in the years 1997 and 2020. It should be noted that the number of declared LWRs has dropped from 226 on December 31, 1974 to 165 as of this writing. The oil equivalent of the energy loss, assuming a 50% efficiency in use as in cars, is 17,000 million barrels. This is about 10 years of the current rate of US consumption of OPEC oil.

How much oil will the world consume in 2012? What role will OPEC play in global oil production? Will biofuels become an important part of the oil market? How will the refinery sector cope? The International Energy Agency (IEA) Medium-Term Oil Market Report tackles these questions, adopting a perspective that goes beyond the traditional short-term market analysis provided in the IEA Oil Market Report. Drawing on current futures curves and the investment threshold for upstream projects, the Medium-Term Oil Market Report analyses how global demand and supply balances may develop. By assessing all firmly planned upstream and downstream projects worldwide, this report forecasts supply and demand potential for crude and petroleum products over the next five years. The results provide an invaluable insight into vital issues such as surplus production capacity and product supply. An essential report for all policymakers, market analysts, energy experts and anyone interested in understanding and following oil market trends, the Medium-Term Oil Market Report is a further element of the strong commitment of the IEA to improving and expanding the quality, timeliness and accuracy of energy data and analysis.

The report identifies the energy needs, uses, and resources in the developing countries of the world and examines the energy options available to them for their continued social and economic growth. If traditional patterns of development are to continue, oil consumption in the non-OPEC LDCs will grow steadily to become comparable with current U.S. consumption between 2000 and 2020. Attempts to exploit indigenous hydrocarbon resources even in those LDCs with untapped reserves will be limited by shortages of capital and technical manpower. In the absence of major actions to replace noncommercial fuels or to increase the effectiveness with which they are used, a large fraction of the 3 to 4 billion LDC rural population in the year 2000 will not be able to raise their energy usage above subsistence levels. There is a wide variety of solutions to these problems, many of them emerging directly from the changed economics of energy. For example, most LDCs have not adequately explored and developed their own indigenous resources; in virtually all energy conversion and utilization processes there are opportunities for improvements in efficiency and substitution of renewable energy forms. In virtually all these areas there are opportunities for effective assistance activities.

In these essays, I examine (i) the empirical methods that are widely used in the literature to measure total factor productivity growth and (ii) the impact of nationalization on productivity in the oil industry. The first chapter, which is an ongoing work with SHI, Wei, investigates two empirical measures, quantity-based (primal) measure and price-based (dual) measure, of total factor productivity growth. My co-author and I analyze how these two measures are affected by output market imperfection or variable capacity utilization. We find that under constant-returns-to-scale production function assumption, existence of the imperfect competition in the output market creates a gap between the measured TFP growth and the true TFP growth, no matter which method is used. However, theoretically, it does not affect the equivalence between the two measures. Under variable capacity utilization, we show that constant-returns-to-scale assumption is almost enough to guarantee the validity of the two methods in correctly capturing the true TFP growth. In the second and third chapters, I analyze the link between nationalization and productivity. The second chapter documents the trends in expropriation acts, and evaluates the impact of expropriations on labor productivity of resource-rich developing countries in the oil industry. In the first part of this chapter, I investigate the trends in the expropriation acts that took place in 102 developing countries during the period 1922-2006. I find that more than half of the acts occurred between 1970 and 1976, there has been an increase in the number of expropriations in recent years, and the extractive sector including petroleum is more likely to be expropriated. Motivated by these facts, in the second part, I examine the oil industry in a period of widespread expropriations, the 1970s. In a sample of major oil-producing countries including OPEC and non-OPEC members, I show that losses in relative labor productivity after

Civil wars, political unrest, and skyrocketing exploration and production costs were unable to hamper Africa's developing oil business. Of the major producing nations, Libya, Algeria, and Nigeria recorded production declines. In the case of the North African countries, the drop was caused by high prices. Nigeria ordered sharp production curtailments last year, but Egypt's production decline may be on the verge of reversing. Algeria and Libya pruned their prices well back in an attempt to increase their share of an increasingly buyer's market. Angola delivered more oil last year than the year before despite open warfare among the factions attempting to take control of the country once Portugal relinquishes authority November 1975. The Nigerian oil industry was as yet unaffected by the July coup which unseated General Gowon after a nine-year rule. Gabon increased its output and was elected to OPEC as a result. Zaire will begin to land oil from its offshore field later this year and Cameroon is also preparing to bring oil ashore in 1977. Continental Oil Co. made two oil discoveries in Chad, one of which seems to be commercial. South Africa is continuing its search for its first production and an uncommercial gas discovery was made in the Orange River Delta of South West Africa. Drilling was off in the Congo, Cameroon, and Nigeria, but well above 1973 levels in Gabon, Angola, Tunisia, and Algeria. Egyptian operations remained steady, but in view of the concession activity in the past year or so, drilling should increase dramatically within the next year.

A description of the economics of the oil-producing countries requires attention to history, and their possible future developments need to be placed against a worldwide background. The first part of this book examines fundamentals of the oil situation before going on to forecasts of the revenues and wealth of the producing countries, with emphasis on the interdependence of producers and consumers. The banks and other financial institutions that are in a position to assist the plans of the Middle East governments and individuals are described, followed by general problems of development. More detail is then given for each country; information available up to the middle of 1975 has generally been used here, as in other sections. A chapter on aid and a general summary conclude the book. The countries covered are not precisely those described by either Arab or Gulf states, and so Middle East has been used to mean the region which includes all the states around the Gulf and extends westward to Libya but excludes Algeria. This is not a mere matter of prejudice, although Algeria astride the Greenwich meridian is as much Middle West as Middle East, nor is it because the countries of the Maghrib have long historical connections with southern Europe much closer than those further east. It is because Libya is expected to resemble the Arab countries of the Gulf in having a surplus of oil revenues over its own requirements, while Algeria together with the non-Arab OPEC countries will undoubtedly have full employment for all its revenues. A further consideration is that the Arab countries between Libya and the Gulf are likely to be the main beneficiaries of the aid which the surplus states will be able to grant. (MCW)

In these pages are the drama and tension of Halbouty's role as ''Ronald Reagan's Energy Guru'' - his leadership of Candidate Reagan's Energy Policy Advisory group and President-Elect Reagan's Transition Team on Energy. His creation and direction of the Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, an organization that has advanced exploration and development of the total energy and mineral wealth of the nations fronting the Pacific, and is credited with creating a rapport between them that the U.S. State Department could not have established. His work on behalf of Indian tribes whose oil lands had been systematically plundered for 20 years. His fight against oil companies' ''Retrenchment'' programs and the so-called ''Corporate Raiders.'' His struggle against an ''Oil Import Tax,'' which he reasoned would be detrimental to America's economy and security. His strong advocacy of his plan to make America energy self-sufficient and free her from OPEC bondage. His enduring affection for and the benefactions of his Alma Mater, Texas A and M University, and students he found worthy of support. His confrontations with and his opinions of the world's ''movers and shakers'' and their varying philosophies. And a potpourri of thoughts, ideas and sentiments of an American original who became a legend in his own time.

The answers to the world energy crisis should not be limited to the management of geopolitical factors (Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela etc.) and to the control of the offer (inciting OPEC countries to optimize their production). They involve also a change of the demand and of the consumers' behaviour. The comments caused by the recent rise of oil prices have shown that this idea, considered as marginal by policy-makers, has started to make its way. The analyses limited to macro-economical units (states, international organization), always forget that cities are the main places of energy consumption. Recent events, like the repetitive saturation of power grids at the origin of spectacular blackouts (Moscow, California, Switzerland, Italy), have led the local authorities to take into consideration part of the problem. They effectively have at their disposition some important leviers which allow them to act both on the offer and on the behaviours. It is evident that in domains like transports, urban renovation or waste treatment, the local authorities have to play a significant role by implementing policies that maximize the energy efficiency and minimize the costs at the same time. The debates which took place during this forum were based on the experiences and realizations presented by experts of several big cities, in particular of Moscow, Madrid and Nuremberg. Some remarkable examples were presented, in particular in the domain of energy auditing, mastery of energy consumptions and production of alternative resources. The usual topics were also approached: energy overview, main trends of the present day energy policy of Russia, new opportunities of new technologies, geo-energy evolutions, Russia-European Union dialogue. (J.S.)

With the substantial increase of crude oil supply, especially OPEC crude oil production growth faster, global oil supply and demand balance widened further, this leads to the decline in international oil prices despite the rebound in global demand for crude oil in 2015. Oil company cost analysis shows that, oil companies are still increasing output although the international oil price is low, which is the main reason of the increasing of the global oil supply. In the future, with the slowly recovery of global oil market and low price of international oil price in the short term, petroleum industry should be ready to deal with the tough situation.%2015年，尽管全球原油需求回暖，但由于原油供应大幅增加，特别是OPEC国家原油产量增速更快，导致全球原油供需差额进一步拉大，从而推动国际油价下跌。据成本分析显示尽管国际油价低位运行，但石油公司仍有增产动力，这是全球原油供应不受低油价影响保持增长的重要原因之一。未来，全球原油市场恢复均衡尚需时日，国际油价短期内缺少上涨的基本动力，石油行业应做好应对长期寒冬的准备。

Full Text Available The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the United Nation Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, informally known as the Earth Summit [1]. Each year since 1995, the parties to the convention have met at the Conferences of the Parties (COP to assess approaches to climate change and related progress. Annual COP conferences rotate among the five UN regional groups; the African Group last year hosted COP 17 on 29 November 2011 in Durban, South Africa. At COP 17, The State of Qatar and the Republic of Korea from the Asian Group agreed to cooperate in order host and encourage the success of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP 18/CMP 8 (the 18th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, plus the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties, serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which will take place in Qatar from November 26th through December 7th, 2012 [2]. The countries decided on a joint effort in preparing for the conference to globally promote and implement the green growth agenda. The Republic of Korea stands behind the green economy concept as a strategy to foster sustainable development and poverty eradication. One of the world’s main energy exporters, the State of Qatar expressed its eagerness to secure progress in the UN climate change negotiations and to support developing countries, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS, in adapting to the effects of climate change [2]. Hosting the UN climate change negotiations this year makes Qatar the first OPEC nation to do so.

Oil and gas markets have been marked by an increased divergence in recent months. On the one hand, oil market developments have generated an unpleasant sense of deja vu: rapid demand growth in emerging markets eclipsed sluggish supply growth to push prices higher even before the conflict in Libya tightened supplies still further. Oil prices around $100/bbl are weighing down on an already-fragile macroeconomic and financial situation in the OECD, pressuring national budgets in the non-OECD and causing price inflation of other commodities, as well as political concerns about speculation. There is an uncanny resemblance to the first half of 2008. On the other hand, in the world of natural gas an amazing disconnect has developed as demand recovered to well above pre-financial-crisis levels in most major regions. Gas markets have tightened in Europe and Asia, where prices are about twice the level seen in the United States, as the unconventional gas revolution is in full swing. From the upstream implications of the Arab Spring to the macroeconomic consequences of the eurozone crisis, energy markets are experiencing one of the most uncertain periods in decades. This publication provides a comprehensive outlook for oil and gas fundamentals through 2016. The oil market analysis covers demand developments on a product-by-product and key-sector basis, as well as a detailed bottom-up assessment of upstream and refinery investments, trade flows, oil products supply and OPEC spare capacity. The gas market analysis offers a region-by-region assessment of demand and production, infrastructure investment, price developments and prospects for unconventional gas. It also examines the globalising LNG trade.

Operation of the NYMEX, a division of the New York Mercantile Exchange that deals almost exclusively in crude oil, heating oil, natural gas, electricity, propane, platinum and palladium trading, is described. The NYMEX where the big forces affecting the market such as OPEC, rising demands, limited oil production and tanker capacity, lagging natural gas supplies, pipeline bottlenecks, and cold snaps are translated into economic values, is considered by insiders as the best guarantee against under- or over-pricing, despite the appearance of bedlam and complete chaos. They consider commodity trading a service rather than an added risk in the energy industry. i. e. the NYMEX is seen as a model of order for transactions on a huge scale, aimed at establishing the value, at any given time under any given circumstances, of standardized energy commodities and sales-volume contracts at agreed points. NYMEX's chief strength is that it provides a completely visible and continuous measurement of value. It is also a factory, generating multiple financial instruments for hedging against risks of unfavorable price movements in the future. The anonymity of the buyers and sellers directing the traders is considered a crucial element of the system, ensuring that the market is about the commodity, not about who is producing or using it. Hedging is a key service wherein sellers (mostly oil companies) sell futures contracts to lock in prices to protect their sources of revenue, should market values fall. Buyers make the deals because they believe that prices will go the other way. Industry insiders maintain that hedgers do not try to make a killing on the market. That is the realm of speculators who are most often high income amateurs. By taking the opposite sides of bids or offers, they provide the market with liquidity.

It is now just over a decade since OPEC escalated the price of oil and triggered a flurry of alternate energy research and changing energy consumption practices. One scientific impact of that historical economic turning point was the launching of geothermal exploration programs of unprecedented intensity that focused on Cenozoic volcanic rocks and active, as well as fossil, geothermal systems. The good science that was already being done on such rocks and systems was both accelerated and diluted by government-funded research and energy industry exploration efforts. After the initial flood of detailed reports, gray literature, and documents interred in company files, we are observing the appearance of syntheses of just what happened and what progress was achieved during the geothermal boom (which has now wilted to the quiet development of a few most promising sites). Recent examples of geothermal synthesis literature include the book Geothermal Systems by L. Rybach and L.J. Muffler (John Wiley, New York, 1981), publications like Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Paper 15 by G.R. Priest et al. (1983) entitled “Geology and geothermal resources of central Oregon Cascade range,” and informative maps like the U.S. Geological Survey series summarizing late Cenozoic volcanic rock distribution and age (R.G. Luedke and R.L. Smith, maps 1-1091 A to D, 1979 to 1982), and state and regional geothermal resources maps (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, 1977-1982). The book under review here is part of this second literature wave, a useful primary reference, collection of syntheses, and literature guide but certainly not unique.

A method based on the application of ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled to hybrid quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (QqTOF-MS) with an electrospray (ESI) interface has been developed for the screening and confirmation of several anionic and non-ionic surfactants: linear alkylbenzenesulfonates (LAS), alkylsulfate (AS), alkylethersulfate (AES), dihexyl sulfosuccinate (DHSS), alcohol ethoxylates (AEOs), coconut diethanolamide (CDEA), nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs), and their degradation products (nonylphenol carboxylate (NPEC), octylphenol carboxylate (OPEC), 4-nonylphenol (NP), 4-octylphenol (OP) and NPEO sulfate (NPEO-SO4). The developed methodology permits reliable quantification combined with a high accuracy confirmation based on the accurate mass of the (de)protonated molecules in the TOFMS mode. For further confirmation of the identity of the detected compounds the QqTOF mode was used. Accurate masses of product ions obtained by performing collision-induced dissociation (CID) of the (de)protonated molecules of parent compounds were matched with the ions obtained for a standard solution. The method was applied for the quantitative analysis and high accuracy confirmation of surfactants in complex mixtures in effluents from the textile industry. Positive identification of the target compounds was based on accurate mass measurement of the base peak, at least one product ion and the LC retention time of the analyte compared with that of a standard. The most frequently surfactants found in these textile effluents were NPEO and NPEO-SO4 in concentrations ranging from 0.93 to 5.68 mg/L for NPEO and 0.06 to 4.30 mg/L for NPEO-SO4. AEOs were also identified.

Full Text Available ObjectiveAccording to current data available, neuroblastoma is the most frequent extracranial solid tumor in infants and children; because of its relationship to the primitive sympathetic ganglia, it may progress or regress spontaneously to more malignant or benign forms of tumors, respectively. It is also an important cause of the Opsoclonus Myoclonus Ataxia Syndrome (OMAS, or the "dancing eyes"syndrome. The risk factor of neuroblastoma includes patient's age at diagnosis; degree of tumor spread, and selected biologic variables such as serum LDH, urinary and serum catecholamines such as VMA and HVA, ploidy and MYCN copy numbers. So, detection of risk factors and risk directed therapy are the mainstay of patient management.Materials & MethodsFor this study the records of 43 out of 46 patients, aged less than 14 years, admitted over 8 years (1996-2004, with the confirmed diagnosis of neuroblastoma or ganglioneuroblastoma were evaluated for full course of therapy and follow up.ResultsOf the patient group, 60% were male and 40% female. The most frequent clinical stage was stage 3 (34.7%, followed with stage 4 (32.6% and 2 (26%.Less than 2% of patients presented with pure neurologic symptoms and these responded well to treatment. Relapse was seen more frequently in stage 4 patients and less in stage 4S. The OPEC protocol, started in 81% of patients, achieved a 54% response; on the other hand, in 15%, N6 was used, with the response rate of 40%. Patient data was analyzed and interpreted using SPSS software to reveal which clinical and biologic factors improve neuroblastoma outcome.ConclusionStaging and patients' age at the time of diagnosis are the most important clinical factors to predict outcome, while primary tumor site and some biologic findings such as urinary VMA and serum LDH levels have a less important value.

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to investigate the changes in gold price and modeling of its return volatility and conditional variance model. The study gathers daily prices of gold coins as the dependent variable and the price of gold in world market, the price of oil in OPEC, exchange rate USD to IRR and index of Tehran Stock Exchange from March 2007 to July 2013 and using ARCH family models and VAR methods, the study analysis the data. The study first examines whether the data are stationary or not and then it reviews the household stability, Arch and Garch models. The proposed study investigates the causality among variables, selects different factors, which could be blamed of uncertainty in the coin return. The results indicate that the effect of sudden changes of standard deviation and after a 14-day period disappears and gold price goes back to its initial position. In addition, in this study we observe the so-called leverage effect in Iran’s Gold coin market, which means the good news leads to more volatility in futures market than bad news in an equal size. Finally, the result of analysis of variance implies that in the short-term, a large percentage change in uncertainty of the coin return is due to changes in the same factors and volatility of stock returns in the medium term, global gold output, oil price and exchange rate fluctuation to some extent will show the impact. In the long run, the effects of parameters are more evident.

A continuous spatial representation of temperature improves the possibility topro- duce maps of temperature-dependent variables. A temperature scenario for the period 2021-2050 is obtained for Norway from the Max-Planck-Institute? AOGCM, GSDIO ECHAM4/OPEC 3. This is done by an ?empirical downscaling method? which in- volves the use of empirical links between large-scale fields and local variables to de- duce estimates of the local variables. The analysis is obtained at forty-six sites in Norway. Spatial representation of the anomalies of temperature in the scenario period compared to the normal period (1961-1990) is obtained with the use of spatial interpo- lation in a GIS. The temperature scenario indicates that we will have a warmer climate in Norway in the future, especially during the winter season. The heating degree-days (HDD) is defined as the accumulated Celsius degrees be- tween the daily mean temperature and a threshold temperature. For Scandinavian countries, this threshold temperature is 17 Celsius degrees. The HDD is found to be a good estimate of accumulated cold. It is therefore a useful index for heating energy consumption within the heating season, and thus to power production planning. As a consequence of the increasing temperatures, the length of the heating season and the HDD within this season will decrease in Norway in the future. The calculations of the heating season and the HDD is estimated at grid level with the use of a GIS. The spatial representation of the heating season and the HDD can then easily be plotted. Local information of the variables being analysed can be withdrawn from the spatial grid in a GIS. The variable is prepared for further spatial analysis. It may also be used as an input to decision making systems.

Although the use of renewable fuels is increasing, oil and other fossil fuels still dominate the global energy supply the next decades, as shown by a review of energy sector development from 1990 to today and projections up to 2030. Nothing indicates that the supplies of oil or any other fossil fuel will be depleted during the coming decades. Resource Nationalism has long characterized the oil market. OPEC has since 1970 successfully controlled the supply and price of oil for its producing member countries. The cartel's grip on the oil market has been strengthened in the 2000s commodity boom, not least as a result of improved production discipline among member countries. At the same time, the long-term trend in the world's great centers of consumption is towards a lower degree of self-sufficiency in energy. The EU dependence on import of oil is expected to rise to over ninety per cent by year 2030. In order to secure a stable energy supply, clear strategies in the oil-importing countries are needed. Tools include diversified import, storage and securing supplies through futures trading on commodity exchanges. Energy policy has long been focused on supply. But the environmental aspects of energy production and use has grown in importance and now the climate issue dominates the energy policy. So far, however, the policy measures to curb the effects of climate change has been both limited and cost-ineffective. The cost to seriously limit emissions of greenhouse gases will be high. To carry out serious climate measures will annually take at least one percent of global GDP, according to an estimate by the British economist Nicholas Stern. This can be compared to the additional cost of approximately five percent of global GDP as energy consumers had to absorb between 2005 and 2008 because of rising prices for fossil fuels

Operational and financial activities of Newport Petroleum Corporation during fiscal year 1998 are reviewed. Despite the low oil prices, and the consequent reduction in industry activity and financial results, the Company continued to focus on high quality assets. The Company improved its proved and probable reserves by 21.3 million barrels of oil equivalent, increasing its reserve life index to over 10 years. Reserve addition costs in 1998 were a competitive $ 7.08 per barrel of oil equivalent. The Company produced more than 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, generating revenue of $ 141 million. The Company acquired an interest in the Caroline Gas Unit for $ 165 million late in 1998 and experienced success with the drilling of two wells. At year end, reserves of approx. 575 bcf of raw gas in place were attributed to this area. New light oil discoveries were made in the Rigel area of northern British Columbia and the Shiningbank area of west-central Alberta. Both properties have significant development potential. While share price performance was essentially flat for the year, the target remains to add value on a per share basis over the long term. The outlook for natural gas appears to be positive, with markets expected to be robust with prices tracking supply/demand fundamentals. The completion of additional pipeline capacity from Alberta into U.S. markets has resulted in a lowering of the differential to U.S. prices, and as a result, it appears that pricing in western Canada will improve in the next several years. Although the outlook for oil prices remains uncertain, with recent OPEC commitments to curtail volumes, there is reason for cautious optimism. Overall, the Company is confident that it has the financial strength to not only weather an extended period of oil price weakness, but to continue to expand its activity levels and prosper.

The existence of three powerful economic centers, Japan, Europe, America, collapse of Soviet political empire, and emergence of a new global nationalism are evident of a transitional period in the history of world leadership. Experiences of the previous world hegemon have taught us that extraordinary economic performance of an industrial country has been the necessary step in the process of becoming the world hegemon. Given its powerful industrial productivity and its economic expansionism, Japan has been considered by some scholars and journalists as a potential candidate for the new world hegemon. Japan's lack of influence on natural resource supply, particuarly energy supply, and its unfit political structure for world leadership are two interrelated problems that this study investigates. A careful investigation of Japan's industrial and political structures suggests that Japan has to resolve a series of complicated and time consuming obstacles in order to achieve world hegemon status. Historically, domination of the world economy has been tied with having an influential role in international energy industry. In this respect and the fact that over 50 percent of the internationally traded petroleum is under the control of American and European entities, it is essential for Japan to gain some tangible control and influence over the international oil industry in order to achieve world leadership status. This success has to be at the expense of American and European oil companies rather than the OPEC countries. This study suggests that Japan has to anticipate more cooperation with these oil-producing countries if it desires to become a world leader. Furthermore, there is a positive relation between the current global political power transition and the present power transition in the international oil industry. Japanese political institutions have not developed to a degree that enable its government to act as a world superpower.

Full Text Available ObjectiveAccording to current data available, neuroblastoma is the most frequent extracranial solid tumor in infants and children; because of its relationship to the primitive sympathetic ganglia, it may progress or regress spontaneously to more malignant or benign forms of tumors, respectively. It is also an important cause of the Opsoclonus Myoclonus Ataxia Syndrome (OMAS, or the "dancing eyes"syndrome. The risk factor of neuroblastoma includes patient's age at diagnosis; degree of tumor spread, and selected biologic variables such as serum LDH, urinary and serum catecholamines such as VMA and HVA, ploidy and MYCN copy numbers. So, detection of risk factors and risk directed therapy are the mainstay of patient management.Materials & MethodsFor this study the records of 43 out of 46 patients, aged less than 14 years, admitted over 8 years (1996-2004, with the confirmed diagnosis of neuroblastoma or ganglioneuroblastoma were evaluated for full course of therapy and follow up.ResultsOf the patient group, 60% were male and 40% female. The most frequent clinical stage was stage 3 (34.7%, followed with stage 4 (32.6% and 2 (26%.Less than 2% of patients presented with pure neurologic symptoms and these responded well to treatment. Relapse was seen more frequently in stage 4 patients and less in stage 4S. The OPEC protocol, started in 81% of patients, achieved a 54% response; on the other hand, in 15%, N6 was used, with the response rate of 40%. Patient data was analyzed and interpreted using SPSS software to reveal which clinical and biologic factors improve neuroblastoma outcome.ConclusionStaging and patients' age at the time of diagnosis are the most important clinical factors to predict outcome, while primary tumor site and some biologic findings such as urinary VMA and serum LDH levels have a less important value .Keywords: Neuroblastoma, Malignancy, Chemotherapy, Prognosis, Adrenal, Children, Opsoclonus myoclonus

Election years in Britain, the USA, France, and Italy have not granted the environment a high place on the political agenda even in the year of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The erosion of the natural resources base is not included as natural resource accounting in the computation of gross national product (GNP). In countries such as Germany, Australia, Indonesia, and Costa Rica, 50% of GNP growth annually is cancelled out by soil erosion, pollution, excessive logging, and other environmental degradation. The economic health of the country including recovery from recessions is related to environmental protection. The economic practices involve ecological deficit accounting. It has been suggested by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute that an economical deflator is needed to gage economic progress. The ecological illiteracy of politicians prevents the American people from realizing the actual cost of ignoring the problems. Politicians fight against raising taxes on gasoline and ignore the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and destabilization of climate. Americans pay a 1/4 the price Europeans pay for gasoline. Energy conservation must be expanded from current levels. Improvements have been made since the first OPEC price hike in 1973; the economy saved $100 billion a year and improved efficiency and production. American conservation in line with European conservation would save $200 billion a year; matching Japanese conservation would generate a savings of $300 billion. This sum exceeds the Federal deficit or the Pentagon budget. It is enough to save 8 million children who die from preventable causes or provide $4.5 billion/year annually to the year 2000 for foreign aid for UN family planning programs. The savings compares favorable with the UNCED estimates of $125 billion/year for environmental protection in the South. The question is whether politicians really would be committing political suicide by listening less to oil and car

This book provided a historical context for United States global oil politics, with a focus on the goals, accomplishments and challenges of United States foreign oil policy, as well as on the relationship between the state and private sectors. This second edition has integrated developments in global politics since the end of the Cold War. It was suggested that many factors have provided the context for oil policy formation: a succession of crises in Iran since the 1950s; 2 wars in Iraq; U.S. intervention in Afghanistan; the threat of international terrorism since September 11, 2001; ongoing conflicts between Israel and the Arab nations in the Middle East; political instability in Saudi Arabia and in Venezuela and the trend towards trade and investment liberalization in Latin America in the 1990s. In addition, the emergence of oil sands reserves in Canada and other sources of non-conventional oil were discussed. Nationalism and oil policies in the Depression and World War 2 were examined. The structure of decision-making in oil policies was examined. Domestic and offshore resources were reviewed, and an outline of international agreements and relationships was presented. Issues concerning OPEC countries and the Iranian Revolution were examined. It was concluded that the United States has become more and not less vulnerable, despite its military strength. The author suggested that the main policy challenge to the United States may well be the tension between its commitment to Israel and its determination to avoid alienating the Arab oil-producing states. refs., tabs., figs.

The US consumption of crude oil resources has been a steadily growing indicator of the vitality and strength of the US economy. At the same time import diversity has also been a rapidly developing dimension of the import picture. In the early 1970`s, embargoes of crude oil from Organization of Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) created economic and political havoc due to a significant lack of diversity and a unique set of economic, political and domestic regulatory circumstances. The continued rise of imports has again led to concerns over the security of our crude oil resource but threats to this system must be considered in light of the diversity and current setting of imported oil. This report develops several important issues concerning vulnerability to the disruption of oil imports: (1) The Middle East is not the major supplier of oil to the United States, (2) The US is not vulnerable to having its entire import stream disrupted, (3) Even in stable countries, there exist vulnerabilities to disruption of the export stream of oil, (4) Vulnerability reduction requires a focus on international solutions, and (5) DOE program and policy development must reflect the requirements of the diverse supply. Does this increasing proportion of imported oil create a {open_quotes}dependence{close_quotes}? Does this increasing proportion of imported oil present a vulnerability to {open_quotes}price shocks{close_quotes} and the tremendous dislocations experienced during the 1970`s? Finally, what is the vulnerability of supply disruptions from the current sources of imported oil? If oil is considered to be a finite, rapidly depleting resource, then the answers to these questions must be {open_quotes}yes.{close_quotes} However, if the supply of oil is expanding, and not limited, then dependence is relative to regional supply sources.

The primary purpose of this report is to provide the groundwork to develop the methods to forecast the world crude oil price. The methodology is used by both literature survey and empirical study. For this purpose, first of all, this report reviewed the present situation and the outlook of the world oil market based on oil demand, supply and prices. This analysis attempted to provide a deeper understanding to support the development of oil forecasting methods. The result of this review, in general, showed that the oil demand will be maintained annually at an average rate of around 2.4% under assumption that oil supply has no problem until 2020. The review showed that crude oil price will be a 3% increasing rate annually in the 1999 real term. This report used the contents of the summary review as reference data in order to link the KEEIOF model. In an effort to further investigate the contents of oil political economy, this report reviewed the articles of political economy about oil industry. It pointed out that the world oil industry is experiencing the change of restructuring oil industry after the Gulf War in 1990. The contents of restructuring oil industry are characterized by the 'open access' to resources not only in the Persian Gulf, but elsewhere in the world as well - especially the Caspian Sea Basin. In addition, the contents showed that the oil industries are shifted from government control to government and industry cooperation after the Gulf War. In order to examine the characters and the problems surrounding oil producing countries, this report described the model of OPEC behavior and strategy of oil management with political and military factors. Among examining the models of OPEC behavior, this report focused on hybrid model to explain OPEC behavior. In reviewing political and religious power structure in the Middle East, the report revealed that US emphasizes the importance of the Middle East for guaranteeing oil security. However, three

This dissertation examines the 61-year evolution of public policies pertaining to development of Alberta's non-conventional source of crude oil. The Athabasca oil sands contain an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels and provide for a safe continental supply. The Provincial Government first sponsored this undertaking in 1943. The period from then to 1971 was one of a transition from a wheat economy to a natural-resource economic base. A stable government emerged and was able to negotiate viable development policies. A second period, 1971 to 1986, was marked by unstable world conditions that afforded the Alberta government the ability to set terms of development with multi-national oil firms. A 50% profit-sharing plan was implemented, and basic 1973 terms lasted until 1996. However, 1986 was a critical year because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reduced prices, causing the Alberta economy to lapse into recession. During a third period, 1986 to 1996, the Alberta Government was unable to adapt quickly to world conditions. A new leadership structure in 1996 made major changes to create ongoing fiscal and development policies. That history provides answers to two primary research questions: How do public policies affect the behaviors of the modern corporation and visa versa? What are the implications for development theory? Two sources of information were used for this study. First, it was possible to review the Premier's files located in the Provincial Archives. Materials from various government libraries were also examined. Some 7,000 documents were used to show the evolution of government policymaking. Second, interviews with leaders of oil companies and federal research facilities were important. Findings support the thesis that, to facilitate oil sands development, government and the private sector have closely collaborated. In particular, revenue policies have allowed for effective R&D organization. Relying on intensive technological

Recently ,the cooperation petroleum contract of the oil and gas in Iraq is service contract .The daily crude oil will achieve 12 ,000 ,000 barrels until Year 2017 ,then the daily crude oil production will be cut down because of the limitation of OPEC .Therefore ,the government of Iraq will reduce the peak production target that was bid and regulated in the original service contract .The government of Iraq will amend some fiscal terms of the contract to keep the certain return of foreign investors ,because that will cut down the economical return of investors .That will encourage the foreign investors to continue to develop oil and gas field in Iraq .There is a comparison of the economical return of foreign investors when the fiscal terms of service contract were amended or not ,that is mainly analyzed in the article .%最近几年伊拉克油气资源在对外合作中采用的合同模式主要为服务合同，预计到2017年伊拉克原油日产量达到1200万桶／d左右，其日产量可能会受到欧佩克组织限产而减产。因此，在公开招标中竞得的原服务合同中规定的高峰产能可能会降低，高峰产能的减少会降低外国投资者的经济效益，因此伊拉克政府也会相应更改其它财税条款来保证外国投资者的经济效益，以鼓励外国投资者继续开发伊拉克油气田。本文重点对比分析服务合同财税条款变更前后外国投资者的经济效益。

Vector error correction (VEC) was used to test the importance of a theoretical causal chain from transportation fuel cost to vehicle sales to macroeconomic activity. Real transportation fuel cost was broken into two cost components: real gasoline price (rpgas) and real personal consumption of gasoline and other goods (gas). Real personal consumption expenditure on vehicles (RMVE) represented vehicle sales. Real gross domestic product (rGDP) was used as the measure of macroeconomic activity. The VEC estimates used quarterly data from the third quarter of 1952 to the first quarter of 2014. Controlling for the financial causes of the recent Great Recession, real homeowners’ equity (equity) and real credit market instruments liability (real consumer debt, rcmdebt) were included. Results supported the primary hypothesis of the research, but also introduced evidence that another financial path through equity is important, and that use of the existing fleet of vehicles (not just sales of vehicles) is an important transport-related contributor to macroeconomic activity. Consumer debt reduction is estimated to be a powerful short-run force reducing vehicle sales. Findings are interpreted in the context of the recent Greene, Lee, and Hopson (2012) (hereafter GLH) estimation of the magnitude of three distinct macroeconomic damage effects that result from dependence on imported oil, the price of which is manipulated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The three negative macroeconomic impacts are due to (1) dislocation (positive oil price shock), (2) high oil price levels, and (3) a high value of the quantity of oil imports times an oil price delta (cartel price less competitive price). The third of these is the wealth effect. The VEC model addresses the first two, but the software output from the model (impulse response plots) does not isolate them. Nearly all prior statistical tests in the literature have used vector autoregression (VAR) and

The International Energy Outlook 2016 (IEO2016) presents an assessment by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the outlook for international energy markets through 2040. U.S. projections appearing in IEO2016 are consistent with those published in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2015 (AEO2015). IEO2016 is provided as a service to energy managers and analysts, both in government and in the private sector. The projections are used by international agencies, federal and state governments, trade associations, and other planners and decisionmakers. They are published pursuant to the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 (Public Law 95-91), Section 205(c). The IEO2016 energy consumption projections are divided according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development members (OECD) and nonmembers (non-OECD). OECD members are divided into three basic country groupings: OECD Americas (United States, Canada, and Mexico/Chile), OECD Europe, and OECD Asia (Japan, South Korea, and Australia/New Zealand). Non-OECD countries are divided into five separate regional subgroups: non-OECD Europe and Eurasia (which includes Russia); non-OECD Asia (which includes China and India); Middle East; Africa; and non-OECD Americas (which includes Brazil). In some instances, the IEO2016 energy production models have different regional aggregations to reflect important production sources (for example, Middle East OPEC is a key region in the projections for liquids production). Complete regional definitions are listed in Appendix M. IEO2016 focuses exclusively on marketed energy. Nonmarketed energy sources, which continue to play an important role in some developing countries, are not included in the estimates. The IEO2016 projections are based on existing U.S. and foreign government laws and regulations. In general, IEO2016 reflects the effects of current policies—often stated through regulations—within the projections. EIA analysts attempt to interpret the

A number of governments including that of the UK subscribe to the belief that a national program devoted to raising energy efficiency throughout the economy provides a costless - indeed profitable - route to meeting international environmental obligations. This is a seductive policy. It constitutes the proverbial free lunch - not only avoiding politically unpopular measures like outlawing, taxing or rationing offending fuels or expanding non-carboniferous sources of energy like nuclear power but doing so with economic benefit. The author of this contribution came to doubt the validity of this solution when it was offered as a way of mitigating the effect of the OPEC price hikes of the 1970s, maintaining that economically justified improvement in energy efficiency led to higher levels of energy consumption at the economy-wide level than in the absence of any efficiency response. More fundamentally, he argues that there is no case for preferentially singling out energy, from among all the resources available to us, for efficiency maximisation. The least damaging policy is to determine targets, enact the restrictive measures needed to curb consumption, and then leave it to consumers - intermediate and final - to reallocate all the resources available to them to best effect subject to the new enacted constraints and any others they might be experiencing. There is no reason to suppose that it is right for all the economic adjustment following a new resource constraint to take the form of improvements in the productivity of that resource alone. As many others have argued, any action to impose resource constraint entails an inevitable economic cost in the shape of a reduction in production and consumption possibilities: there would be no free lunch. In the last few years debate about the validity of these contentions has blossomed, especially under the influence of writers on the western side of the Atlantic. In this contribution the author outlines the original arguments

consensus has been reached on OPEC strategic behavior. In the third chapter, we are interested in the effects of supply-side market power on oil price dynamics in face of different demand shocks, and model the oil market as composed of a strategic dominant firm and several competitive fringe producers. In each period, the dominant firm makes decision while taking fringe's response into consideration. We consider two alternative pricing strategies for the dominant firm. Our results show that this dynamic strategic model improves the potential of dominant firm-competitive fringe model in fitting and explaining real world data. A regime switch after a permanent demand increase generates a time path for price that looks like the price movements in the recent years.

The global oil market will undergo sweeping changes over the next five years. The 2013 Medium-Term Oil Market Report evaluates the impact of these changes on the global oil system by 2018 based on all that we know today – current expectations of economic growth, existing or announced policies and regulations, commercially proven technologies, field decline rates, investment programmes (upstream, midstream and downstream), etc. The five-year forecast period corresponds to the length of the typical investment cycle and as such is critical to policymakers and market participants. This Report shows, in detailed but concise terms, why the ongoing North American hydrocarbon revolution is a ''game changer''. The region’s expected contribution to supply growth, however impressive, is only part of the story: Crude quality, infrastructure requirements, current regulations, and the potential for replication elsewhere are bound to spark a chain reaction that will leave few links in the global oil supply chain unaffected. While North America is expected to lead medium-term supply growth, the East-of- Suez region is in the lead on the demand side. Non-OECD oil demand, led by Asia and the Middle East, looks set to overtake the OECD for the first time as early as 2Q13 and will widen its lead afterwards. Non-OECD economies are already home to over half global refining capacity. With that share only expected to grow by 2018, the non-OECD region will be firmly entrenched as the world’s largest crude importer. These and other changes are carefully laid out in this Report, which also examines recent and future changes in global oil storage, shifts in OPEC production capacity and crude and product trade, and the consequences of the ongoing refinery construction boom in emerging markets and developing economies. It is required reading for anyone engaged in policy or investment decision-making in the energy sphere, and those more broadly interested in the oil

In recent years more and more complex remotely sensed data have been made available to the public by national and international agencies. These data are also reprocessed by different organisations to produce secondary products that are of specific need to a community. For instance the production of chlorophyll concentration maps from ocean colour data provided by NASA for the marine community. Providing access to such data has normally been focused on simply making the data available with appropriate metadata so that domain specialists can make use of it. One area that has seen significant investment, both of time and money, has been in the production of web based data portals. Primarily these have focused on spatial data. By providing a web map visualisation users are able to quickly assess both spatial coverage and data values. Data portal improvements have been possible thanks to advancements in back end data servers such as Thredds and ncWMS as well as improvements in front-end libraries for data visualisation including OpenLayers and D3. Data portals that make use of these technological advancements have aimed at improving the access and use of data by trained scientific domain specialists. There is now a push to improve access to these systems by non-scientific domain specialists through several European Commission funded projects, including OPEC and AquaUsers. These projects have improved upon an open source web GIS portal created by Plymouth Marine Laboratory [https://github.com/pmlrsg/GISportal]. We will present the latest version of our GIS portal, discuss the designs steps taken to achieve the latest build and share user stories as to how non-domain specialists are now able to utilise the system and get benefits from remotely sensed data. A first version was produced and disseminated to end users for feedback. At this stage the end users included government advisors, fish farmers and scientific groups with no specific GIS training or knowledge. This

The plan of this paper is to review the role of the US in the evolution of international energy security in the past; to examine the present situation and outlook for international energy trade and investment on which the US, and most major consuming countries depend, and, finally, to speculate about the possible effect on energy security of the war against terrorism. It seems that, the slogans of past energy security are not a good guide to the present problems. All industrial countries depend to some extent on imported energy supplies, but have the capacity to pay for imports over a wide range of price scenarios. Price stability is not to be expected: there will be short term shocks to both buyers and sellers, medium term cycles with leads and lags in adjusting supply capacity to demand, and long term uncertainty about the effects of policies aimed at sustainability and protecting the climate. The diversity and flexibility of international trade and investment offers the best long and medium term security and is most likely to achieve adjustments at lowest cost. Competition between oil and other fuels, and between major oil exporters to secure markets for their oil reserves, will limit the possibilities for cartel behaviour. Short-term disruptions do, however, create problems. These have been managed during the last twenty years by a combination of actual or potential use of strategic stocks by importers and reserve capacity by OPEC exporters, particularly Saudi Arabia. The role of Saudi Arabia cannot be separated from its political relationships within the Middle East and with the US. The immense flexibility of policy which the US now enjoys as a superpower could be eroded by a weakening of the acceptance the US receives from governments in the Middle East. In the last resort, if the international system fails, the US and Europe could survive the termination of oil imports from the Middle East; Asia could not, and the consequences for the world economy including

Based on the observation data by the open - path eddy covariance ( OPEC) system and the synchronous monitoring data of meteorological elements, the authors analyzed the diurnal variation, monthly variation and seasonal variation of the concentration of CO2.The authors described the variation rule of CO2 flux,then discussed the influence of wind speed,temperature, momentum flux, sensible heat flux, latent evapotranspiration and PAR to the CO2 flux in forest ecological system of Changbai mountain.The results showed that the transport direction of CO2 flux and gradient was from the atmosphere to the vegetation,with a negative maximum at noon.At nignttime,the transport direction of CO2 flux and gradient was opposite to the transport dirention at daytime,with a positive maximum in the morning.The wind speed and temperature had great influence on CO2 flux,the relationship of among CO2flux and momentum flux, sensible heat flux, latent evapotranspiration as well as PAR were pretty good.% 利用涡动相关技术观测资料和同步的气象要素监测资料,分析了CO2的浓度日变化,描述了CO2通量的变化规律,探讨了风速、温度、动量通量、感热通量、潜热通量以及光合有效辐射对长白山森林生态系统CO2通量的影响,结果表明：在白天,CO2通量和梯度的输送方向是从大气向植被,在中午输送达到负的最大值。在夜间,CO2通量和梯度输送的方向与白天相反,并且,在早晨达到正的最大值。

The auto industry -- one-seventh of the GNP, and the highest expression of the Iron Age -- is about to trigger the biggest transformation in industrial structure since the microchip. Ultralight cars molded from net-shape advanced composites can be several-fold lighter than present steel cars, yet safer, sportier, and more comfortable, durable, and beautiful. Modern hybrid-electric drives boost efficiency approximately 1.3-1.5x in heavy steel cars, but approximately 5-20x in ultralight, very slippery plafforms. Synergistically combined into ultralight-hybrid 'hypercars,' these elements can yield state-of-the-shelf family cars that average 150-300+ mi/gal -- twice that with state-of-the-art technologies -- yet can also be superior in all other respects, probably including cost: carbon-fiber monocoques can actually be cheaper to mass-produce that steel unibodies. Designing cars more like aircraft and less like tanks requires not only an approximately 400-500 kg curb mass and very low air and road drag, but also an aerospace philosophy of engineering integration. Mass, cost, and complexity turn out to compound with heavy hybrids but to decompound with ultralight hybrids, owing partly to radical simplification. Excellent aerodynamics, preferable including advanced techniques for passive boundary-layer control, will be the key to successful design integration. Transforming automaking is a competitive and environmental imperative, could form the nucleus of a green industrial Renaissance, and would enhance national security by, among other things, saving as much oil as OPEC now extracts. However, this transformation faces serious cultural barriers. For example, hypercars will be more like computers with wheels than like cars with chips -- they'll have an order of magnitude more code than today's cars -- but Detroit is not a software culture. Just the transition from stamped and welded steel to integrated and adhesive-joined synthetics is difficult enough. Nonetheless

will be willing to make investments themselves or to attract sufficient capital to keep up the necessary pace of investment. Upstream investment has been rising rapidly in the last few years, but much of the increase is due to surging costs. Expanding production in the lowest-cost countries - most of them in OPEC - will be central to meeting the world's oil needs at reasonable cost. The prospect of accelerating declines in production at individual oilfields is adding to these uncertainties. The findings of an unprecedented field-by-field analysis of the historical production trends of 800 oilfields indicate that decline rates are likely to rise significantly in the long term, from an average of 6.7% today to 8.6% in 2030. WEO-2008 also analyses policy options for tackling climate change after 2012, when a new global agreement - to be negotiated at the UN Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen next year - is due to take effect. This analysis assumes a hybrid policy approach, comprising a plausible combination of cap-and-trade systems, sectoral agreements and national measures. On current trends, energy-related CO2 emissions are set to increase by 45% between 2006 and 2030, reaching 41 Gt. Three-quarters of the increase arises in China, India and the Middle East, and 97% in non-OECD countries as a whole. Stabilising greenhouse gas concentration at 550 ppm of CO2-equivalent, which would limit the temperature increase to about 3 deg C, would require emissions to rise to no more than 33 Gt in 2030 and to fall in the longer term. The share of low-carbon energy - hydropower, nuclear, biomass, other renewables and fossil-fuel power plants equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) - in the world primary energy mix would need to expand from 19% in 2006 to 26% in 2030. This would call for $4.1 trillion more investment in energy-related infrastructure and equipment than in the Reference Scenario - equal to 0.2% of annual world GDP. Most of the increase is on the demand

IFP and the OAPEC jointly organize a regular international seminar dealing with world oil-related problems appearing in the news. For the first time, this seminar has been opened to oil and gas company specialists, service companies, research centers and independents. This year's theme concerns oil and gas reserves: are they abundant or are we headed towards the shortages announced by some experts? This theme is especially topical in that: oil and gas currently meet two thirds of world energy needs and almost completely dominate the transport sector; the reserves declared by the OAPEC countries account for nearly half of world reserves; the price of a barrel of oil went through the roof in 2004; world energy demand is growing fast and alternative sources of energy are far from ready to take over from oil and gas in the next few decades. Since the reserves correspond to the volume it is technically and economically viable to produce, the seminar has, of course, dealt with the technical and economic questions that arise in connection with exploration and production, but it has also considered changes in the geopolitical context. Presentations by the leading companies of the OAPEC countries and by the IFP group were completed by presentation from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the IHS Energy Group, Total and Gaz de France. This document gathers the transparencies of the following presentations: Hydrocarbon reserves in OAPEC members countries: current and future (M. Al-Lababidi); Non OAPEC liquid reserves and production forecasts (Y. Mathieu); World oil and gas resources and production outlook (K. Chew); Global investments in the upstream (F. Birol); Total's policy in the oil and gas sector (C. de Margerie); Gaz de France's policy in the oil and gas sector (J. Abiteboul); NOC/IOC's opportunities in OPEC countries (I. Sandrea); Relationships between companies, countries and investors: How they may

Until the late 1990's, the balance of Chinese energy production and consumption was treated by the rest of the world as a net figure. No-one knew what was going on inside the Chinese economy - it was a black box. As far as anyone was concerned, the Chinese would not soon be a major factor in world energy markets. Energy policy makers realized how totally blind they were in 2004 when Chinese electricity production could not keep up with internal demand and the world experienced a surge in liquids demand as Chinese entrepreneurs fired up generator sets across the economy. The incremental Chinese demand was a factor in the price surge that year that had been building since the OPEC accord in 1999. It was probably the catalyst for the spike but we didn't have the data to know. Times are certainly changing, but it is still only twilight in that black box. No country has confronted the need to collect data and formulate coherent policy for nearly a billion and a half consumers. State enterprises were set up to manage key energy sector activities, but coordinating among them proved difficult. A number of institutional arrangements have succeeded each other until now, when stronger energy policy and administrative functions of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) are gaining traction. NDRC vice-chairman Zhang Guobao has maintained a steady hand on Chinese energy-policy evolution for several years - overseeing the increasing coherence of Chinese domestic and international energy policy - but the tension with powerful state enterprises and other vested interests still effectively defies efforts to truly centralize and co-ordinate Chinese national-level energy policy and program authority. The first of the three studies looks back into the nature of Chinese institutions and governance for insights into how they function and to identify some of their limits, so as to pinpoint the nature of the forces that drive or constrain change within China

Given the events of the past 25 years concerning energy and environmental issues and our reaction to them, what lessons can we learn? First, the individual American consumer wants and expects energy to be a stable commodity with low prices and easy availability. As evidenced by the heated debate over increasing the federal gasoline tax by $.05 per gallon (which would still leave Americans paying only one-third of what Europeans pay for gasoline), increases in energy prices elicit very strong public and political opposition. As further evidence, it has been argued that the general public support of the Gulf War was due, in part, to a recognition of the need to maintain a stable source of cheap oil from the region. The American public wants to maintain the benefits of cheap and abundant energy and expects its political leaders to make it happen. A second lesson is that if constraints on the energy supply do occur (e.g., the OPEC-imposed oil embargo) ardor environmental impacts from energy use do appear to be significant (e.g., SO{sub 2} and CO{sub 2} emissions), the preference is for a technology fix rather than a behavioral change. This is evidenced by our reliance on moving low-sulfur coal more than 1,000 miles from Wyoming to burn in Illinois power plants rather than reducing the demand for electricity with energy-efficient measures in residential, commercial, and industrial activities. National research programs to produce an automobile that gets 80+ miles per gallon take higher priority over working to get people to use mass transit to reduce their driving mileage. Americans expect that advanced technology can be relied upon to come up with solutions to energy and environmental problems without having to change their lifestyles. The experience with natural gas, in which a regulatory change (deregulation) was combined with technology developments (horizontal drilling and improved gas turbines for electricity generation) to increase available supply and hold

从2014年下半年开始，国际油价由100多美元/b b l迅速跌近40美元/b b l，后经过缓慢回升，现徘徊在50～60美元/bbl。分析认为，如果欧佩克始终不采取减产措施应对油价的下跌，低油价期将会持续2～3年或者更长。在低油价下，多数油企生产经营受到了较大冲击，一些油企不得不减产、减少投资甚至以低价转让油气资产来维持企业的生存。这些情况为国内石油企业以较低成本并购优质油气资产带来了难得的机遇。我国石油企业应该加大国际可能交易资产的评估与优选研究，抓住有利时机开展国际油气合作，获得优质油气资产；同时，应优化企业资产，集中精力发展优势产业；积极推进企业体制机制和技术创新，实现降本增效；拓展新领域，增强石油企业抗风险的能力；推进油气市场化进程，盘活资产。%Starting from the latter half of 2014, international oil price dropped swiftly to around US$40 per barrel from more than US$100 and then grew slowly. The oil price is lfuctuating between US$ 50 per barrel and US$60 at the present time. According to analysts, the low oil price period will last in the next two or three years or even longer if OPEC refuses to cut oil production in response to oil price decline. Low oil price affected production business of many oil enterprises, some of which had to cut their production and investment and even transferred oil and gas assets at a low price to maintain their business operation. In such situation, Chinese oil enterprises have the opportunities for acquisition of high-quality oil and gas assets at low cost. They should strengthen the efforts to appraise international assets available for transactions and take the favorable opportunities for foreign oil and gas cooperation for acquisition of high-quality oil and gas assets. Meanwhile, the Chinese oil enterprises should optimize their assets, focus on their

Full Text Available This article discusses the key problems of assessing the country’s investment climate. The subject in the light of recent political events, has received increased attention. For reasons of increasing political tensions between Russia and the West, the investment activity is significantly reduced among foreign investors in our country. Studies have shown that the main problems of the current investment climate assessment methodologies are objectivity, comprehensiveness, relevance and comparability of proposed assessments. This article provides a mechanism for solving the above problems by using a multifactor model of investment attractiveness. The information base for the study served as the official annual statistical reports and bulletins of international organizations such as: IBCA, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, Monetary Fund, OPEC, UNCTAD, UNESCO, World bank, etc. The key theoretical positions on the assessment of the investment climate in the country were presented the results of the analysis reports and reviews of the international consulting company Ernst and Young and Deloitte, the official Internet resource of Russian and international business publications: Euromoney, Fortune, The Economist, The Financial Times, BBC, Bloomberg, RBC, Vedomosti and Komersant. The reliability and validity of scientific statements, conclusions and recommendations contained in this article provides the correct use of sufficient analytical and statistical information on the directions of research. In this article, the key attention is paid to the method of mathematical modeling and forecasting. With the introduction of the multiplicative model, where the multipliers are the separately calculated factors and potential risk factors, it is planned to bring the most accurate and objective evaluation model of investment climate in the country. The results articles as data and mathematical models will allow foreign investors to use

analysis, for world coal production. For world oil and gas production, the fit for the ultimate is 640Gtoe (billion metric tons of oil equivalent). This is somewhat larger than the sum of cumulative production and reserves, 580Gtoe. Because future discoveries are not included in the reserves, it is to be expected that our fit would be larger. On the other hand, there have been large increases in OPEC reserves that have not been subject to outside audit, so it is not clear how close the two numbers should be. For world coal, the sum of the fits for regional ultimate production is 660Gt (billion metric tons). This is considerably less than the sum of cumulative production and reserves, 1,100Gt, but it is consistent with the British experience, where until recently, reserves were a large multiple of future production. The projection is that we will have consumed half of the ultimate world oil, gas, and coal production by 2019. This means that the current intense development of alternative sources of energy can be justified independently of climate considerations. When these projections are converted to carbon equivalents, the projected future emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal from 2005 on are 520GtC. The projected emissions for the 2005-2100 period are smaller than for any of the 40 SRES scenarios. This suggests that future scenarios should take exhaustion into account. These projections, if correct, are good news for climate change.

the geographic distribution of hydrocarbons, will remain very close to the present level of 63 million bbl/day during the next ten years; - assumptions concerning the demand are more risky, and one of them (W. J. Lévy estimated 68. 8 million bbl/day for 1990; - a balance betwen supply and demand will not be achieved in the short term, and beginning now a slight shortage should be considered in the medium and long term; - the contribution of natural gas and other hydrocarbons to achieving a balance must overcome various handicaps of cost, difficulty of transportation and the time required for implementation; - this suggests that the price of crude oil can only increase in real value and the exploration-production and the development of unconventional hydrocarbons make up the major challenge for the coming decade; - the medium-term solution goes via the development of production by the OPEC countries provided they are offered social and industrial development compatible with their actual needs.

the market power of OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries), a cartel of nations which is the single largest oil exporting entity in the world, and is an entity considered unreliable. On the other hand, it reduces the demand for domestic farm subsidies. At the same crops comprise a small share of the retail price of food. As a result, the expected negative impact of biofuel was at worst a small increase in the retail price of food. However, the food price inflation in the year 2008 suggests that the negative impact on food consumers was significantly higher than expected and also outweighed the impact fuel consumers. I estimate the effect on biofuels on food and oil prices and compare them to other estimates in the literature and also relate these to prices observed in the real world. The third topic is the economics of greenhouse gas regulations of transportation fuels. Climate change policies such as United Nations' Kyoto protocol, European Union Emission Trading Scheme, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the US north-east mandate an aggregate emission target, called a cap and allow regulated entities to trade responsibilities for abatement. Furthermore, these policies have generally and sometimes exclusively targeted the electricity and industrial sector for emission reduction. However, the Low carbon fuel standard and Renewable fuel standard are two policies about to be implemented by the State of California and the US federal government, which exclusively target the transportation sector for emission reduction. Furthermore, these regulations mandate emission intensity target for fuels rather than aggregate emission reduction. I compare the cost-effectiveness of these two types of regulations, namely, aggregate emission caps versus emission intensity standards and discuss how prices, output and emissions vary between these two types of policies.

increasing cases of pollution of farmlands, rivers, wells and the environment in general. Apart from all these, what is even becoming more worrisome is that none of all these oil firms operating in the region is able to account on how it disposes its industrial toxic waste generated as a result of its industrial activities within the region. Finally Geological strata are adversely destroyed by seismographic activities, Sea creatures are destroyed by oil pollution and Means of livelihood of revering dwellers are often threatened by pollution. RECOMMENDATIONS After identifying how the pollution in the Gulf of Guinea region is increasing in relation to the increasing petroleum activities, I have come up with the following suggestions/recommendations. 1. AFRICAN UNION RESOLUTION The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in conjunction with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should use their capacity to be able to influence the African Union (AU) to pass a resolution banning the illegal dumping of radioactive waste, Gas flaring and Costal bunkering in this part of the world. 2. RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, in conjunction with the United Nations Environmental Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency and with the corporation of the African Union should send team of researchers to come and investigate this trend on petroleum pollution in the Gulf of Guinea region and proffer possible solutions in checking the menace.

The relationships among ozone, emissions, and meteorology are very complex in central California, and must be well studied and understood in order to facilitate better air quality planning. Factors significantly impacting changes in emissions such as economic and population growth, and adopted emission controls make the matter even more complex. Here we review the history of ozone pollution in central California since the 1970s to plan for the future. Since the 1970s, changes in emissions have been accompanied by likewise dramatic changes in region-to-region differences in air quality. We focus on the coastal San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) and the inland San Joaquin Valley (SJV). In the 1970s, the SFBA population was approaching 5 million people while the considerably larger and more rural SJV population remained below 2 million. The SFBA population was mostly confined to coastal locations. Peak ozone levels occurred mostly around the population centers and especially over the Bay itself. Hourly average ozone levels routinely approached 160 ppb. These high ozone levels promoted regulations under which SFBA emissions were continuously reduced through the present. By the 1990s, SFBA emissions had been reduced considerably despite the region's population growing to around 6 million. Relative to the 1970s, in 1990s the SFBA had lower peak ozone levels that were shifted to inland locations where much of the population growth was occurring. The SFBA still exceeded the federal 1-hour standard. A rapidly changing economic landscape in the 1970s promoted vast changes in the central California population distribution. In the SJV, the OPEC oil crisis promoted significant development of petroleum resources. Meanwhile, family farms were quickly being replaced with commercial-scale farming operations. The SJV population rapidly expanded to around 3 million people by the early 1990s. During this time, SJV emissions increased considerably, largely from increases in mobile source

The increasing fluctuations in the oil prices through the last decades have been transferred to the oil exporting countries. Thus, many oil exporting countries experienced significant changes in the economic activity due to changes in the oil markets. In light of this, oil exporting countries have attempted to implement a policy that would stabilize the fluctuations in the oil markets recognizing the adverse effects of such behavior on oil exporting countries, as well as oil importing countries. Saudi Arabia, as the largest oil-exporting country and a member of OPEC, takes the role of oil-markets stabilizer by behaving as the swing producer. This role has caused the global economic fluctuations to transfer into the domestic economy. In addition, Saudi Arabian government has adopted a fixed exchange rate currency regime. Although it has contributed to domestic price stabilizations, this policy has also exposed the country to global economic disturbances. The purpose of the study is to empirically investigate these aspects for Saudi Arabia. First, the effects of shocks originated in the international markets on the Saudi Arabian economy. Second, how the fixed exchange rate regimes influences the domestic macroeconomic variables. Third, to what extent the oil sector contributes to the non-oil domestic fluctuations. Finally, how the findings from the study can be explained by economic theory. In pursuing this, there are four economic theories that are considered to explain the causes of business cycles. These theories are Classical Theory, Keynesian Theory, Monetarist Theory, and the Real Business Cycles. In addition, a theoretical model is derived that is suitable for an oil-based economy. The model follows the set up of McCallum and Nelson (1999). Then, the empirical models of Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and Error Correction Model (ECM) are implemented with three different specifications: Choleski Decomposition, Block Exogeneity and long-run Cointegration

will be willing to make investments themselves or to attract sufficient capital to keep up the necessary pace of investment. Upstream investment has been rising rapidly in the last few years, but much of the increase is due to surging costs. Expanding production in the lowest-cost countries - most of them in OPEC - will be central to meeting the world's oil needs at reasonable cost. The prospect of accelerating declines in production at individual oilfields is adding to these uncertainties. The findings of an unprecedented field-by-field analysis of the historical production trends of 800 oilfields indicate that decline rates are likely to rise significantly in the long term, from an average of 6.7% today to 8.6% in 2030. WEO-2008 also analyses policy options for tackling climate change after 2012, when a new global agreement - to be negotiated at the UN Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen next year - is due to take effect. This analysis assumes a hybrid policy approach, comprising a plausible combination of cap-and-trade systems, sectoral agreements and national measures. On current trends, energy-related CO2 emissions are set to increase by 45% between 2006 and 2030, reaching 41 Gt. Three-quarters of the increase arises in China, India and the Middle East, and 97% in non-OECD countries as a whole. Stabilising greenhouse gas concentration at 550 ppm of CO2-equivalent, which would limit the temperature increase to about 3 deg C, would require emissions to rise to no more than 33 Gt in 2030 and to fall in the longer term. The share of low-carbon energy - hydropower, nuclear, biomass, other renewables and fossil-fuel power plants equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) - in the world primary energy mix would need to expand from 19% in 2006 to 26% in 2030. This would call for $4.1 trillion more investment in energy-related infrastructure and equipment than in the Reference Scenario - equal to 0.2% of annual world GDP. Most of the increase is on the demand

Jeremy Rifkin is the author of the international best seller, The Hydrogen Economy, which has been translated into fourteen languages. It is the most widely read book in the world on the future of renewable energy and the hydrogen economy. In his presentation on 'The Hydrogen Economy', Mr. Rifkin takes us on an eye-opening journey into the next great commercial era in history. He envisions the dawn of a new economy powered by hydrogen that will fundamentally change the nature of our market, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the industrial age. Rifkin observes that we are fast approaching a critical watershed for the fossil-fuel era, with potentially dire consequences for industrial civilization. Experts had been saying that we had another forty or so years of cheap available crude oil left. Now, however, some of the world's leading petroleum geologists are suggesting that global oil production could peak and begin a steep decline much sooner, as early as the second decade of the 21. century. Non-OPEC oil producing countries are already nearing their peak production, leaving most of the remaining reserves in the politically unstable Middle East. Increasing tensions between Islam and the West are likely to further threaten our access to affordable oil. In desperation, the U.S. and other nations could turn to dirtier fossil-fuels, coal, tar sand, and heavy oil, which will only worsen global warming and imperil the earth's already beleaguered ecosystems. Looming oil shortages make industrial life vulnerable to massive disruptions and possibly even collapse. While the fossil-fuel era is entering its sunset century, a new energy regime is being born that has the potential to remake civilization along radical new lines, according to Rifkin. Hydrogen is the most basic and ubiquitous element in the universe. It is the stuff of the stars and of our sun and, when properly harnessed, it is the &apos

Most published data on energy, population and the economy are unreliable. In many cases, authors have political motives, selectively choosing data from a wide range of uncertainty to give a desired image. In addition to the uncertainty of the measurements themselves, as in the case of population or the confidentiality of the oil reserves, they often indulge in manipulation. A so-called hedonistic factor distorts the calculation of GDP in the United States; and the definition of the Proved Reserves by the Securities and Exchange Commission gives rise to 'reserve growth'. OPEC misreports its oil reserves because its quotas depend upon the reported reserves, and the reserves were overestimated in the Soviet Union because economic and technical constraints were ignored. Our present culture of eternal growth makes the word 'decline' politically incorrect, but constant growth is unsustainable in a finite world. Growth is the Santa Claus of the modern age who is supposed to provide welfare and retirement for our children and us. All natural events, when measured over their full life, can be modelled under one or more cycles, as in the Fourier analysis. This cyclical nature corresponds with the finite nature of the Universe; everything that is born will die, whether we speak of the solar system, the Earth, or human species. What goes up must come down. The Russian population is already declining and Europe's will soon do so too. This basic understanding was recognised by the celebrated King Hubbert when he made his famous prediction in 1956 that US oil production would peak in 1970. But, in fact, he oversimplified by showing a single peak. In reality, US oil production had a secondary peak (93% of the first one) in 1985, reflecting the entry of Alaskan production, which itself peaked in 1988. A symmetrical oil cycle reflects a large number of independent producers, acting randomly, but in many cases economic and political factors disturb the

convinced the African Union to pass a resolution making it compulsory on all the African Coastal Countries to set up ocean regulatory bodies in their respective countries. iii. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) should assist with her technical know how to educate the various Sea Ports in Africa on how to be degreasing their Quay Aprons without necessarily causing Ocean Pollution. iv. The organization of the petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) should use its capacity to find a way in controlling the incessant oil spillages going on in the African Gulf of Guinea region since many of the Gulf of Guinea Countries are its members. v. The World Health Organization (WHO) the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should also jointly send their team of researchers to come and investigate the trend of this pollution especially along the Coast of Somalia and Gulf of Guinea and proffer possible lasting solution before it becomes too late. CONCLUSION We cited on how the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans are polluted in Africa in relation to the petroleum, industrial and Sea Port activities in addition to the Toxic waste Trafficking, however some governments and non-governmental organizations are trying in fighting the menace, but the increasing nature of Ocean pollution in Africa is calling for assistance. It was in view of this situation I came up with the above listed suggestions/Recommendations, which I believe if implemented and adopted it will help in reducing the pollution otherwise the pollution of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans will ever remain on the increase.

Most published data on energy, population and the economy are unreliable. In many cases, authors have political motives, selectively choosing data from a wide range of uncertainty to give a desired image. In addition to the uncertainty of the measurements themselves, as in the case of population or the confidentiality of the oil reserves, they often indulge in manipulation. A so-called hedonistic factor distorts the calculation of GDP in the United States; and the definition of the Proved Reserves by the Securities and Exchange Commission gives rise to 'reserve growth'. OPEC misreports its oil reserves because its quotas depend upon the reported reserves, and the reserves were overestimated in the Soviet Union because economic and technical constraints were ignored. Our present culture of eternal growth makes the word 'decline' politically incorrect, but constant growth is unsustainable in a finite world. Growth is the Santa Claus of the modern age who is supposed to provide welfare and retirement for our children and us. All natural events, when measured over their full life, can be modelled under one or more cycles, as in the Fourier analysis. This cyclical nature corresponds with the finite nature of the Universe; everything that is born will die, whether we speak of the solar system, the Earth, or human species. What goes up must come down. The Russian population is already declining and Europe's will soon do so too. This basic understanding was recognised by the celebrated King Hubbert when he made his famous prediction in 1956 that US oil production would peak in 1970. But, in fact, he oversimplified by showing a single peak. In reality, US oil production had a secondary peak (93% of the first one) in 1985, reflecting the entry of Alaskan production, which itself peaked in 1988. A symmetrical oil cycle reflects a large number of independent producers, acting randomly, but in many cases economic and political factors disturb the

likely to become more important, bringing environmental problems inherent to the production, transport, and processing of these resources to new sectors of the environment. Table 1. United States and world energy consumption by source (January 2000) Energy SourceUnited StatesWorld BBOEPercentBBOEPercent Petroleum6.84127.140 Natural gas4.224.214.421.2 Coal3.923.216.724.7 Nuclear1.37.94.56.7 Hydroelectric0.733.71.62.4 Biomass3.45 Total7.610069.3100 Source: Edwards (2001). BBOE=billion barrels of oil equivalent. Reserves of crude oil, the raw material used to make petroleum products, are not evenly distributed around the world. The production levels of the major oil-producing nations in the world, shown in Figure 2, are based on data collected by the US Department of Energy's (DOEs) Energy Information Administration (EIA). Nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) produce ˜43% of the world's total of nearly 68 million bbl per day (bpd) (1.08×1010 L d-1), with Saudi Arabia as the world's largest producer at 8.3 million bpd (12% of total) (1.33×109 L d-1), followed by Russia and the former Soviet Union at 6.4 million bpd (9%) (1.02×109 L d-1). The United States produced ˜5.7 million bpd (8%) (9.06×108 L d-1). Oil and gas are being produced in virtually all geographic areas intersecting a wide range of ecological habitats, including tropical rain forests, Middle Eastern deserts, Arctic regions, and deep offshore marine environments. (6K)Figure 2. World crude-oil production from leading producers, 1960-2000, in million barrels per day (Energy Information Administration, 2001). The petroleum industry has two main components, exploration/recovery and refinement/delivery. Crude oil is delivered to refineries and refined products are delivered to consumers through a large transportation network that includes tankers, barges, pipelines, and railroads. This transportation network links suppliers and producers across the world. Above-ground tanks, below